Police Chief Kevin Walsh said he aims to take his department "back to basics" and is looking to add six positions in next year's budget, which he spoke about in front of the Finance Committee Thursday morning.

"We sat down with [Town Administrator] Derek Sullivan and went line by line and I think this is a modest budget request," Walsh said. "We are definitely the no frills police department in this whole area."

Sullivan's initial budget drafts requested a $5,064,489 budget for the police department. That figure is $611,210 higher than last year, but still lower than the budget from as recent as 2012, when it was $5,205,102.

Walsh spoke about two things being central to his budget proposal. The first being that he wants "getting back to basics" as a theme to his administration. The second is that he wants the force to begin to become more proactive as a opposed to reactive.

He said the way to accomplish those things is to increase the manpower of the police force, specifically on the street with patrolmen.

"The backbone of any police department is the patrol division," said Walsh.

Walsh said that the department responded to 47,000 calls for service last year and provided the Finance Committee with statistics on department's staffing from past years.

He said in 2012 there were 47 sworn officers compared to the 40 there are today, including three extra patrolmen. Today there is a chief, one lieutenant, a detective sergeant and two detectives. He said in 2005 there was a chief, three lieutenants an investigator and four detectives --one of which was assigned to a drug task force that Wareham no longer has anyone assigned to.

Walsh also said he recently had to turn down an offer to participate in a street crimes unit that was started by the Plymouth Police Department because he couldn't afford to dedicate a Wareham officer to the unit full-time.

However, Walsh also said Wareham has great relationships with area departments and drug task forces and that Wareham detectives are always working active drug cases.

In addition to the patrolmen, Walsh is looking to add another lieutenant position as well as a part-time dispatcher. He said because the department only has eight dispatchers, two shifts every week are automatically overtime shifts. He said that costs the town $40,000 and is looking to get a part-time dispatcher to cover those costs for less money.

"I would encourage you to come forth with any ideas any approaches to drive that [crime] number down," said Finance Committee member Tom Worthen. "The better you people do your job the better this town is going to be."