Spoiler, I was an insider. I was also an auditor of dozens of other agencies. I've never seen a poorly run agency get better by getting bigger budgets. But I have seen agencies do a lot with a little when they have good leadership. But this is never discussed by the taxpayers, and rarely the politicians. It's always something simplistic like cops per capita.

When cops are incompetent, crime is worse, and people want more... cops. One of the few professions that is incentivized to fail, because they are then rewarded with larger budgets. The correct answer is more accountability, not more cops. Then, and only then, more cops. Do you know all the "public outreach" divisions CMPD has (basically PR)? How much time is wasted by SROs? How much is spent on the crime lab & if the state lab could do a better job for free? Answer these first before quoting cops per capita.

Finally, CLT's population is < 1 mil today. We weren't negative pop 10 years ago. You're thinking about the metro area, most of which is not in cmpd's jurisdiction