The Police Department will absorb $48,312 in budget cuts for fiscal year 2010, at least $27,000 of which is not sustainable, Police Chief Ed Denmark told the Finance Committee last week. In planning his department’s budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, he could not come up with enough sustainable reductions without eliminating a police officer’s position, he said, so he decided to forgo replacing a cruiser. However, that cut can’t be sustained in fiscal 2011, he said.
“It’s a gamble,” Denmark told the board. “We might not have to buy two cruisers next year” to get back on track, but the cars “go to pot pretty quickly when they get over 100,000 miles,” he continued, so there is little doubt that the town will have to buy at least one new police car in fiscal 2011. That would mean an almost certain reduction in force to keep police spending at its new lower level, and thus an increase in the number of shifts with only one officer on patrol, he said. A reduction in force would not only compromise officer safety, but would mean fewer officers on patrol at a time when property crimes are likely to be on the upswing, he said, because in a bad economy, there is typically an increase in housebreaks, car theft, and other forms of larceny.
In addition to the police cruiser, Denmark’s proposed fiscal 2010 cuts include $9,000 for janitorial services, $7,708 realized by reducing his administrative assistant’s time by eight hours a week, and $4,604 in police overtime pay. To make up for the lost janitorial service, Denmark will share a janitor with Town Hall, he said.
