Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is looking to add 400 officers to the city’s police force after the department lost nearly 1,000 members over the past three years.

A budget proposal soon to be released by the mayor calls for bringing LA’s police department up to 9,500 active duty officers — up from the 9,103 currently working for LAPD, according to the Los Angeles Times. The city’s current budget has funding for up to 9,460 officers.

“I think it’s very important to set that as a marker — very important,” Ms. Bass told the newspaper. “There’s no way I would say, ‘I want to get to 9,200.’ Again, because I’m really worried about further attrition.”

Bonuses of up to $20,000 for new police hires are heading to the City Council for approval, and the department has widened its recruiting net to the East Coast and historically Black colleges and universities. The LAPD is also debating using a program to bring back retired officers for up to a year.

However, an LAPD union spokesperson told the LA Times that anti-police sentiment has contributed to a higher attrition rate among current officers and is suppressing interest from potential recruits.

The department is anticipating that 600 officers will leave in the coming year due to retirements and resignations, while graduating classes at the academy are two-thirds full at best.

The roughly 9,100 officers on the force is a fairly steep decline since August, when Chief Michel Moore said that the department was at 9,284.

Several major cities are seeing significant declines in their police departments as well. 

According to FBI data, New York City has lost 8% of its police force since 2019. Philadelphia has lost 9%, and Chicago has had an 11% drop.

• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.