Lawrence police cars sit in a lot near the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St., Tuesday, March 29, 2016.

The Lawrence Police Department will hire 14 positions over its authorized force this spring, after receiving approval from the City Commission on Tuesday.

Besides the over-hire, commissioners also voted unanimously to have City Manager Tom Markus create a plan for how to fill police department vacancies in the future and to make future over-hire decisions as part of the regular budget process.

Markus also asked Tuesday, and got approval, to talk with Police Chief Tarik Khatib to come up with a method to determine how large of a force the police department needs. Khatib said in a city memorandum that the authorized force had grown from 140 in 2003 to 152 today, which he said was not enough to keep up with “the increased workload, complexity, technology challenges and community expectations.”

“The police department has been left to determine what the level of services is in the community,” Markus said. “It’s responsible to have an engaged discussion as to just what the expectation is out of the police department and what level of service.”

Khatib had initially asked for an over-hire of 17 positions, noting he’s expecting 15 to 20 officers to leave this year because of a high “anomaly” of officers becoming eligible for retirement. Those hired now to go through training could fill the vacancies next year. Khatib said he spoke with Markus, who had concerns about the practice of over-hiring. The over-hire of 17 officers was estimated to cost between $644,396 and $1,267,061, depending on how many people leave this year and how many qualified applicants are found.

Bryan Kidney, the city’s finance director, has said the funding would come from city reserves.

“We agreed on 14 as a good first approach,” Khatib said. “That will work for us, if you do that.”