Following Boston’s most violent year in a decade and calls for increased police presence on the city’s streets, the Boston City Council’s Committee on Public Safety held a public hearing Tuesday to discuss the possibility of future enrollment for 14 Boston Police Department recruits who were cut from the police academy after they had been formally accepted in March.

Edward Callahan, assistant chief of the Bureau of Administration and Technology for the BPD, said the BPD had to cut 14 recruits from the original 84 students at the academy because the state only provided enough funding for 70. Since the original cuts, seven recruits have been accepted back into the academy after other accepted candidates withdrew their applications.

“We had 400 recruits at the start,” Callahan said. “Eighty-four made it through the screening process and passed everything required of them. There are occasions when we have too many candidates that pass the process. A much higher rate of candidates passed than we thought would.”

Although seven of the 14 recruits were accepted back into the academy, seven more are still trying to secure positions. Some of the hopeful recruits attended the meeting to appeal to the BPD.

“We were all concerned when 14 recruits were told that there were not enough resources to move forward,” said City Councilor Chuck Turner (Dorchester, Roxbury), who called the meeting.

As one of the seven recruits without a position in the academy, John Shaughnessy, a graduate of Northeastern University with a degree in criminal justice, told the committee he was stunned when he first learned he could not enter the academy.

“We were congratulated and got letters saying we were to attend orientation for the academy,” Shaughnessy said. “Then we were told there wasn’t enough money. We were crushed.”

Fellow recruit Matthew Spulnik expressed a similar dissatisfaction with the recruitment process.

“I was told that I was going to be offered a position in the class,” Spulnik said. “It was very embarrassing walking into my old job and saying that I needed my job back because the city didn’t have enough money.”

Chairman of the Committee on Public Safety Councilor-At-Large Stephen Murphy said the state is hoping for another group of 35 recruits to enter the academy in the fall class in October, but the seven recruits left over from the most recent class are not assured spots in the fall.

Callahan said that the recruits would be required to go through the entire application process again because the 180-day period that the recruits have to enter the academy upon completion of the testing process will have expired. Several of the recruits, as well as Turner, said they thought this is unfair.

Spulnik, noting the recruits’ displeasure with Callahan’s ruling, requested that the BPD observe a provision in the police academy rules that allows the department to make an exception to place the seven candidates at the top of the recruitment list in October. Callahan opposed the provision, saying it is only reserved for extreme circumstances.

Turner said that he plans to push hard to place the seven recruits at the top of the next class.

“The right thing to do is to bring these seven back,” Turner said.

Callahan said that some of the seven recruits may still be added if more of the accepted recruits chose not to attend the academy, but he also noted there is a Friday afternoon deadline for adding new members to the academy. Once the deadline passes, the recruits would have to repeat the process in the fall.