Once Columbus police hoped to have 524 officers by this year.

That was back in 2007, as voters got ready to head to the polls to vote on a 1 percent tax devoted primarily to public safety, promising first to swell the police ranks by 100 new positions, taking the full force from 388 to 488. The long-range plan, administrators said, was to keep growing the force as the city kept growing in population.

But those well-laid plans since have gone awry, though the sales tax passed and the police department grew, and the pay for police officers rose to levels comparable to cities of similar size.

The department today finds itself much better off than at the ebb of its staffing shortage, when it fell nearly 50 short of a full force of 388, and residents waited hours for an officer to arrive on a nonemergency call. At its worst, the force had only about 340 officers. As of Friday, it had 450.

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