Ask Mr. Answer Person: "What has happened to the Decorah Police Department's request for two more officers?"

Mike e-mails Mr. Answer Person: "I was reading how the Decorah PD wants to hire two more officers and then read their reasons about "sometimes only one officer is on duty" and "we live in a different age and they should always have backup..."  My simple question is who are the Winneshiek County Deputies who also patrol Decorah and use the same dispatcher, jail, etc?  Seems like every time there's a police report, there's a final line to those stories, "Decorah PD was assisted by the Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office, the Iowa State Patrol, the Decorah Fire Department, the Iowa Bureau of ....etc.  Seems like there's always plenty of back up there.  I have a scanner and they all seem to be on each other's frequencies often and have many times heard the pd communicate with the deputies and vice versa.  And like I said, for those 'serious' times, then everyone's in on the action!  I mean really...it is kind of boring most days."

Mr. Answer Person says: "Your e-mail is more of a comment than a question, but it does give me a chance to tell the public that the Police Department request was not approved by the City Council.  The two new officers would have cost $137,674 in on-going expenses and $23,874 in one-time start-up expenses for a total of $161,548.  The city council didn't have a lot of money in the 2014 city budget to add expenses, so the proposal is off the table.