BATON ROUGE- A number of changes are on the horizon for Baton Rouge Police next year.

One includes a number of reserve officers scheduled to begin volunteering sometime in January.

"We have one retiree that worked in homicide for 16-17 years," L'Jean McKneely with BRPD said. "He's going to come back and work cold cases. We have another who's specialty was working on the streets, he's going to assist uniform patrol."

It follows a tumultuous year that led to Baton Rouge breaking its record for homicides.

In a letter sent out by Chief Murphy Paul to officers, the chief noted that BRPD will also begin changing out the cruiser fleet of Dodge Chargers and will be replacing them with Chevrolet Tahoes.

"After a year of research, meeting with local and national partners and subject matter experts in the areas of engines and oils, it was decided that Chevrolet Tahoes will be the main makeup of our future fleet," Paul wrote.

Raises were also given to Baton Rouge Police Officers last week. A three percent raise takes effect for their next pay cycle. The Chief wrote that the department was able to secure an additional two million dollars during the second Extraordinary Legislative Session under Act 45 of 2020.

"We are going to do an assessment on how we can best use the monies," McKneely said. "Whether it's equipment.. whether it's providing additional hours of overtime for officers to patrol the streets, we will do an overall assessment on where we can best spend the money."

A fourth deputy chief was also approved. This will change the organizational structure and there will be a Deputy Chief of Administration (Chief of Staff), Patrol Operations, Criminal Investigations and Operational Services.