D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) took virtual swipes at each other late this week over her plan to hire 347 new police officers next year, with Bowser accusing Allen of imperiling her ability to attract new officers and Allen dismissing her allegations as little more than political posturing ahead of the June 21 primary election.

The issue at stake is Bowser’s budget proposal for $30 million to hire and retain those 347 officers, which after usual attrition would give the Metropolitan Police Department a net gain of 35 officers, keeping the department’s staffing above 3,500. Bowser has warned that staffing levels are lower than they have been in decades, leading to an increase in response times as homicide and gun violence have risen.

On Thursday, the council’s judiciary committee, which is chaired by Allen, largely approved Bowser’s request for funding to hire and retain the officers she wants, though it cut $6 million off of the total — largely by trimming some housing assistance and tuition benefits and cutting a perk that would allow officers the ability to take their patrol car home. Speaking at a press conference on homelessness, Bowser reacted angrily to the news.

“I can’t hire 347 officers if you take away the tools that need to do it,” she said. “You can’t say you are for police hiring if you are not moving the package.”

Bowser later released a written statement, where she also took aim at the council’s decision to continue slowly pulling police officers out of D.C. schools. The council had initially approved the plan last year, giving MPD until 2025 to take officers out of schools. With her budget submission last month, Bowser sought to undo the council’s move, but Allen and the judiciary committee rejected that.

“We know, and people who spend time in schools know, that there are times when support is needed to keep all students safe. We want that support to come from trained [school resource officers] who know and have built trusting relationships with our students and who know the school administration and teachers. Again, this is not the moment to be removing these resources from our community,” said Bowser in her statement.

Within 90 minutes Allen fired back with his own statement, saying that his committee created the region’s most generous signing bonus for new officers ($20,000) and funded the incentives at a realistic level. He argued that MPD had in prior years not spent the money for incentives that it had been allocated, so it was unclear that it would be able to spend the increased funding Bowser wanted.

Allen also said that Bowser’s accusations were motivated by political considerations, notably the coming mayoral primary where public safety has emerged as a key issue. (A February poll from the Washington Post put crime as one area where most residents gave her negative marks.)

“We’re two months out today from an important date in our city, so it’s an obvious choice to try to gin up conflict where there is none. I prefer seeking common ground and keeping politics out of policy,” Allen said. “The council is not the mayor’s rubber stamp, and to describe the committee’s support and dramatic expansion of these initiatives as a cut isn’t a serious response. The city needs leaders to stop pointing fingers and instead get to work.”

In recent weeks Bowser has used multiple public events to highlight provisions of her budget focused on police and public safety, and just this week sent out a campaign mailer highlighting some of her promises to hire more police. She has also reacted cooly to the council’s request that the D.C. Auditor conduct a study to determine what MPD’s ideal staffing level would be; no such comprehensive study has yet been done, despite years-long debates over whether the city needs more police officers.

Speaking at a campaign event on Thursday, Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large) — who is challenging Bowser and has unveiled his own public safety plan — also said Bowser’s push to get MPD to 4,000 officers was more based on politics than reality.

“The number the mayor gave isn’t based on anything,” he said. “The mayor is suggesting a number of police that the chiefs have said they can’t meet for years. We have significantly underinvested in violence prevention and intervention, and that’s part of public safety continuum that we have to improve very quickly.”