Aurora police present 2025 budget asks including staffing, ShotSpotter renewal and digital-forensics hire

Aurora Police Department leaders presented the department's proposed 2025 budget to the Aurora Special Finance Committee on Nov. 4, asking the council to fund new sworn officers and supervisors, several civilian positions, technology tools and vehicle purchases and to renew a three-year ShotSpotter contract.

The presentation, delivered by the Police Chief and Deputy Chief Thomas, laid out personnel needs including a request for eight additional sworn officers and two frontline sergeants, a second civilian digital forensic investigator, a public safety media coordinator and a management assistant for the records division. "For the 2025 budget year, we are asking for 8 additional officers to further meet the expectations of our community and continue down the path of making Aurora 1 of the safest cities in The US," Deputy Chief Thomas said.

The police senior staff tied staffing requests to changing duties and workload. Deputy Chief Thomas said Aurora's authorized sworn strength rose in recent years to 326 but that midyear retirements and training throughput left the department at 321 sworn officers in autumn; he estimated about 30 officers are commonly unavailable at any time because of extended absences or training. Commander Steve Stemmott described a separate urgent need in digital forensics, saying the department's single civilian digital-forensics specialist had processed "over 51 terabytes of digital evidence" this year to date and that Naperville, a smaller neighboring agency, fields a three-person team for comparable work.

Technology, training and community-response items were part of the packet. The department asked to renew its ShotSpotter…