When St. Paul gets five additional officers next year, they will be focused downtown and along the light rail, Police Chief Todd Axtell said Wednesday about next year’s proposed budget.

The purpose is to address an increase in crime in those places, Axtell told St. Paul City Council members at a budget committee meeting.

The city council will vote on St. Paul’s proposed $561.6 million budget in December and has been hearing from department directors about their plans. On Wednesday, it was Axtell’s turn to talk about his department’s proposed $108.3 million budget for 2017.

Here are some of the highlights from Axtell, who rose through the St. Paul Police Department’s ranks and became police chief in June, about what’s happening and what he’s planning:

PREVENTING GUN VIOLENCE

Reducing gun violence remains Axtell’s top priority and he wants to do it through prevention, intervention and enforcement. More than 80 people were shot in St. Paul last year, which was up from previous years. In the first eight months of this year, 47 people were shot, compared with 60 in the same period last year.

“Community engagement is a big piece,” Axtell said. “The more we connect our youth to services and jobs and opportunities throughout our community, the less likely they are to become victims of gun violence or perpetrators.”

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Axtell started a new community engagement unit and plans to hire three civilian employees for it at a cost of $228,000 next year.

Separately, the community ambassador initiative is slated for $150,000 in annual funding, plus a one-time boost of $50,000 in 2017. In the program, community members spend time on the streets to divert youth from risky behaviors, helping connect them with jobs and other opportunities.

MORE OFFICERS

Mayor Chris Coleman announced in April that he would increase the department’s authorized strength by five officers, to 620, in 2017. The department has a federal grant, which requires a match of about $203,000 from the city in both 2017 and 2018. Beginning in 2019, the city will be on the hook for $521,000 for the additional five officers.

BODY CAMERAS

About 40 officers in the department’s Western District will begin a pilot program, testing two kinds of body cameras, in October or November. All patrol officers will start using the cameras next year.

There’s not a cost to the city in 2017 because St. Paul received $1 million in funding from a federal grant and the St. Paul Police Foundation, but Axtell said the city has to be prepared to continue funding the program. The cost for 2018 is estimated at $720,000.

PROTEST COSTS

The city spent $1.85 million, mostly in police staffing, to respond to demonstrations that erupted in the wake of the St. Anthony police shooting of Philando Castile in July. Staff is working with the finance department to determine the effect on the 2016 budget, and the city’s finance director said he’s talking with state officials “to see if there’s any possibility for the state to help us off-set any of these costs.”

DIVERSIFYING THE DEPARTMENT

The police department is 26 percent diverse, and it’s Axtell’s goal to reach 30 percent to 35 percent at the end of his six-year term. A new St. Paul police academy, which started in August, is 55 percent diverse.

Axtell said he’s invested in recruiting more female officers, which represent 16 percent of the department, and who he noted he rarely gets use-of-force complaints about.

MORE TRAINING

By the end of next year, all St. Paul patrol officers will have completed Crisis Intervention Team training. Officers have received implicit bias training in the past, but next year they’ll have training specific to law enforcement officers.

“We want to make sure that our officers are able to … take an introspective look at how we view race, because everybody has implicit bias. I don’t care who you are, we all have it,” Axtell said.

PROCESSING FINGERPRINTS

The police department has funded two forensic scientists at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension laboratory for drug testing. But the department’s own lab, which became accredited in forensic testing in 2014, saw a 387 percent increase in latent fingerprint processing from 2013 to 2015 and needs another forensic scientist to handle the work, Axtell said.

Axtell said it is critical work — fingerprints were used to identify and charge a suspect in a homicide this month. The police department renegotiated its contract with the BCA to keep one forensic scientist at the state lab and add one to the department’s lab. There is not a cost to the city.