The West Palm Beach Police Department is set to receive a boost in funding and staff after city officials approved a tentative budget on Monday night.
The department will receive funding to hire 27 police officers and five other staff in the upcoming fiscal year. The changes are part of a larger agency overhaul led by Chief Tony Araujo, who was hired earlier this year.
The total increase in the police department’s budget amounts to $5.4 million for fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1. Its tentative overall budget is at approximately $102.5 million, according to a city budget presentation.
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At a criminal justice advisory meeting on Tuesday, Araujo said the staffing changes are intended to increase visibility in the community and allow for a cultural reset with new, impressionable officers.
“They're working with the community, not against the community. We want to be a presence of calm, promoting voluntary compliance,” Araujo said. “We're never gonna be an occupying force.”
The department’s optimistic outlook, conveyed by Araujo and others at the advisory meeting, stands in stark contrast to the agency’s state roughly one year ago.
In late July 2024, seven West Palm officers chased a man into Boynton Beach, leading to a car crash that killed a pregnant woman and her mother. The officers didn’t tell dispatchers about the chase and returned to work as if nothing occurred, according to court documents. They were later suspended, fired, then charged by state prosecutors.
Approximately two months after the chase, former Chief Frank Adderly was fired after the mayor alleged the chief and his command staff engaged in overtime-related fraud.
Araujo, who spent 40 years at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office, was made interim chief then officially hired in February to stabilize the department.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Araujo said departmental changes are underway in recruiting, training and community engagement. The most ambitious, however, is a plan to organize a 25-to-30 person recruit class of potential West Palm Beach officers, who would go through the academy and then go on to the police department.
It would allow them to instill best practices in new officers at the start of their careers, he said.
