New London - The city started a new push for police recruits this week with a Facebook posting, fliers and newspaper advertisements, an effort to bolster the depleted ranks at the police department.

Acting Police Chief Peter Reichard said the department is reaching out to potential applicants with sights set on enrolling at least two recruits into a class at the state's municipal police academy in April.

The department is also looking for lateral transfers, certified officers who can start work without the cost of academy training. Previous attempts to lure certified officers were unsuccessful.

"The administration is fully committed to re-staffing our police department as quickly as possible," Finizio said in an email.

"I continue to applaud our current officers for the great job they are doing under tough circumstances. Violent crime is down in New London and we just ended our first year without a homicide in over a decade," Finizio said. "Despite this positive news, it is abundantly clear that our police patrol division is being stretched too thin and that we need more boots on the ground to accomplish our mission. We will continue to hire, as the budget and training logistics allow, until our staffing levels rise to acceptable levels."

The City Council has set aside more than $200,000 for at least three new hires, whose starting annual salary is about $55,000. Reichard said there is also money in the budget from two officer vacancies.

Reichard said the city will receive a fresh list of potential hires from the Norwich-based Law Enforcement Council of Connecticut, where those seeking a career in law enforcement take a regional entry examination. The law enforcement council holds exams for the benefit of 24 eastern Connecticut police departments.

The City Council last year passed an ordinance requiring a minimum of 80 officers at the department, where numbers had dwindled at one point last year to about 65 officers - down about a third from size of the department just three years ago.

Finizio estimated in his proposed budget it would take the addition of $1.4 million to fund 15 additional officers. Three recruits hired last year are expected to graduate from the academy in March. Their graduation is followed by at least three months of field training.

In addition to the 80-officer minimum, the City Council passed an ordinance last year requiring the department to maintain four K9 units at the department, where there are now two.

"When we have adequate staffing in our patrol division and funds to provide needed equipment for new K9s, we will look from within our agency as opposed to hiring a K9 team from outside," Reichard said.

Reichard said there are "many qualified and deserving officers within our department," to staff future K9 teams.

Erica Richardson, chairwoman of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, said her hope is to boost the department's ranks as quickly as possible to get officers back to "true community policing," rather than a reactionary force unable to stray too far from their cruisers without getting another call for service.

She said she is an advocate of a casting a wider net for certified officers, especially those from urban environments more familiar with dealing with a diverse population and a housing density like New London's.

Richardson said officers have been putting in long hours and have done a "yeoman's job in patrolling the streets with a limited force."

Of the recent statistics showing major crime down, Richardson said, "crime going down and crime being eliminated are two different things."

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