Police chief pitches budget to City Council
Spending request is nearly $14,000 less than this year; members discuss City Hall.
The West Lake Hills City Council discussed the Police Department budget and the potential expansion of City Hall facilities at its meeting last week.
Police Chief Scott Gerdes presented a rough draft for the department’s budget requests and also gave the city a five-year budget projection.
Among the items Gerdes requested for the coming budget year are a new patrol car and a new administrative car at a total of $80,000; three new dash cameras at $19,653; five new radios at $30,375; software for the patrol car cameras at $16,443; two in-car radars at $9,150; a fitness machine at $2,000; and software to update officers and staff on police procedure and save on paperwork for $12,175.
Gerdes’ request is $13,847 less than the expenses the city approved for the Police Department for the current budget year.
Gerdes also put forth the idea of requiring his officers to meet on an annual basis with a counselor. He estimated that cost around $5,600, but the true cost has yet to be determined.
“Typically, nobody wants to go because they don’t want to be the weak one,” Gerdes said. “But this way, it’s not because I’m weak, it’s not because I can’t handle it; it’s because the chief made me go . ... It’s an opportunity to go get an analysis where they sit down with a psychologist for 45 minutes, and they talk about if anything is going on where they’re not able to sleep or eat.”
After some consideration of whether or not to just pay for improvements to City Hall facilities, Mayor Linda Anthony said the city had reached the conclusion the city would get more bang for its buck if City Hall facilities were rebuilt entirely, including metal roofs and steel construction. A new police station was estimated at $1.2 million, Anthony said.
“If we stick to the same building footprint and the same design constraints, we’re going to tie our hands, and it does not present us with optimal solutions,” Anthony said. “We’re going to be dealing with the same problems and same spatial challenges we’ve dealt with for the last 30 years . ... We want to start afresh.”
No action was taken on either item.