The University Police Department has expanded this year, with increases in everything from the number of police officers to equipment used and office space.

According to Lt. Todd Henert, the UP now employs 62 police officers, a significant jump from last year’s total of 46. Henert said the department examined how many officers it needed.

“We looked at the functions we wanted to fill and how many officers it would take to do that,” Henert said.

The number of cars the UP has also falls into that, Henert said. The UP currently has a fleet of 11 marked squad cars and three unmarked ones.

Even the UP’s office is becoming larger. The building that once contained the speech and hearing clinic is currently being renovated.

Chief Don Grady said the UP has been looking to expand for a while.

“We’ve always needed a new facility, a new space,” Grady said, adding their current facility does not have a conference room, nor an emergency operations center.

“Those things are all very important, and we’ll be doing those kinds of things in the new office,” Grady said.

But manpower and mobility are not the only increases. Henert said their budget for this year has increased by 30 percent.

Eddie Williams, executive vice president of Finance and Facilities and chief of operations, said the increases in funding are from re-allocations of funds through the division of Finance and Facilities.

“[Funding] is being done internally; it won’t affect other university operations,” Williams said. The UP is a branch of the Finance and Facilities division.

The UP has also received a $600,000 federal grant to support the two additional emergency management specialists that were hired.

The specialists, said Lt. Darren Mitchell, will assist in training police and university personnel in emergency preparedness.

“They will be critical in the development of exercise drills in order to test our emergency operations plans,” Mitchell said. Mitchell also runs the UP’s office of emergency management and planning.

Mitchell said the UP will also have two emergency operations centers for top NIU officials.

“It’s a location where top-level university administration would go and collectively meet and handle a particular emergency as info is coming in,” Mitchell said.

Despite the amount of changes and increases, and despite the Feb. 14 shootings, several officials said these changes were a long time coming.

“These plans were in place before Feb. 14,” Williams said.

Henert said the decision to move the UP into the old speech and hearing clinic was also planned.