Mayor Dan Sullivan on Tuesday vetoed a $200,000 addition the Anchorage Assembly made to the 2010 city budget.

The money was to prepare for a police training academy for new recruits in early 2011. The Assembly supported the addition in a 6-5 vote last Tuesday.

The mayor let stand another Assembly add-on, $77,000 to restore bus service the day after Thanksgiving and on Veterans Day.

The bus appropriation passed the Assembly 9-2.

It takes eight votes to override a mayoral veto.

In vetoing the police academy appropriation, Sullivan said, "While I appreciate the amendment's intent, the question is not whether to hold a police academy but rather when it is most appropriate."

The mayor said in a written statement that his administration intends to hold a police academy in late 2011, after preparing a 2011 budget and completing an audit of how the Anchorage Police Department deploys its forces.

The later academy will give the police chief time to "properly review his department's operations," said Sullivan.

He said the fact that APD this year received a $6 million budget increase over last year, and that he requested and the Assembly approved $1.1 million more for the department as part of other budget revisions last week, demonstrate his commitment to public safety.

Paul Honeman, East Anchorage Assembly member and a former Anchorage Police Department lieutenant, sponsored the proposed $200,000 addition.

Honeman wanted money put in this year's budget to ensure that an academy to train new officers could be held in the first quarter of next year. It takes months of preparation, including psychological exams and purchase of $45,000 to $50,000 worth of ammunition, Honeman said.

"I'm disappointed," Honeman said. "It was a negligible amount for 2010. It wasn't going to change our mill rate or be a tax increase to the taxpayers."

As for the idea of holding an academy in late 2011 versus early in the year, "That's unacceptable, in my opinion," Honeman said. "To me that doesn't show a commitment at all to public safety."

APD has lost 43 officers since January 2009, he said.

Honeman hopes to be able to find enough votes to override the veto next week.