more police officers on BART trains, the transit agency's board held a budget vote today that aims to increase recruitment and retention on Bart's police force. Alice Wirtz has the story. A unanimous approval by the board of directors gives BART police an increase of $8.53 million, making the top salary range for new hires between 55 and $67 an hour. Thursday's board meeting in downtown Oakland. Members unanimously approved an additional $8.5 million to fill empty positions and put more officers on trains. Obviously, the benefits of recruitment and retention, as we've spoken about , and enhanced presence on our system more improvement and obviously an improvement with filling vacancies can lead to savings in overtime where we're currently having to fill in for those missing spots. Ultimately it's an effort to get more passengers back on the trains, interim police Chief Kevin Franklin has served with BART for 27 years. He's been interim chief since February. I believe Bart is safe, but there is a perception out there that we have to acknowledge that there is crime on BART and we're trying to work very hard right now to address that perception, Franklin says this extra budget will get more riders back on BART. We track very carefully where incidents occur at BART, and we do put our resources where they are needed. It's all in an effort to get more riders and more safety for those riders on the transit line. I think it does work well. The important part is having enough people out there to respond to the incidents that we're observing and to prevent more incidents from happening. The BART board of directors unanimously approved an increase in budget for police officers, but will it be enough to get passengers to feel safe enough to get back on the trains? Bill Breslin lives in the city She's been riding Bart since the 70s, and I don't feel safe anymore. Why Well, because there's homeless people on it and people get on and look kind of crazy. So she says some lines on Bart are worse than others. The whole last BART car was all full of marijuana smoke, you know, it just didn't seem right. People feel that they can just do that. Others like Joe Ramirez says it's important for riders to feel safe. I think people definitely are. I know my mom like she refuses to take Bart because she thinks like she's going to get robbed, which when she comes and I know like my family feels the same way, they try to avoid it when possible. This $8.5 million increase will help BART compete with ten other public safety agencies around the Bay Area at a time when recruiting public safety and police officers is challenging
