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Police chief outlines staffing gains, grant pursuits and need for body cameras
Summary
The police chief told the Gardner Public Safety Committee the department has recruits in academy, is pursuing funding to make a domestic-violence advocate full time, and will ask the council for supplemental funds to buy body-worn cameras after grant attempts failed.
The Gardner police chief told the Public Safety Committee on Sept. 11 that the department has three recruits in academy training, with one graduating later that day, and that staffing remains strained by retirements and long-term injuries. The chief said the department is reviewing many qualified applicants and “we’re getting a little bit of help back.”
The chief said three retirements are expected — one Dec. 1, another Jan. 20 and a third by March — and several officers have been out with long-term injuries, including one for about nine months and another expected to be sidelined six to eight months. As a result the department has paid about $128,000 in overtime since July 1 to cover contractual time-off and backfill shifts.
The department is awaiting notice on a state “Shannon” grant the chief said would allow the city to convert its domestic-violence advocate from a 19-hour-a-week post to a full-time position. “The position has evolved tremendously since we brought it back and I couldn't be more happy with the direction it's headed in and the person we have in there,” the chief said.
The chief said the department has a pilot body-worn camera program and an agreed policy with unions but has not received grant funding and will ask the council for supplemental funds to implement the program. “I just don't think we can wait any longer. It's too much of a liability,” the chief said.
Other items covered by the chief included exploring a comfort dog program with handlers in Lunenburg and Westminster, continued homeless outreach and post-overdose follow-up, vendor review for building security because warranty costs for the current vendor Cygnet are rising, and an upcoming need to replace the records-management and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. The chief said the current subscription costs about $28,000 a year and that replacement options vary widely in price, with some systems carrying six-figure annual costs.
The chief asked the committee to expect future requests to the council: for supplemental funding for body cameras and possibly for multiyear contracts to reduce building-security costs, and for planning a replacement of the records-management/CAD system with careful data-migration to protect public records.
