been an ongoing issue for years that i don't believe the city has adequately solved according to chris bauman head of the d.c. police union the problems stem from understaffing lack of recruitment and aging equipment and they have massive equipment problems and by problems i mean maintenance issues missing equipment ability to keep equipment in service they've had to close some of the fire houses that's impacted some of the response times ed smith head of the firefighters association sees this primarily as a budget issue i see it as a major issue budget resources we don't have enough the population in the cities exploding it's been reported that eleven hundred people per month or moving in and the department is not growing to meet the demand that's what i find disturbing and my members fun disturbing there's all this money why not grow d.c. recently announced that it ended the last fiscal year with a four hundred seventeen million dollars budget surplus traffic fines including those from cameras another twenty seven million dollars more than expected for the city's coffers the district also r