Hamilton police warn zero vehicle purchases in 2025 budget will strain fleet as lead times stretch to 16 months

Hamilton’s police chief told the township council that the 2025 budget contains no capital funding for replacement patrol vehicles, and he warned that long manufacturer lead times and upfitting schedules will worsen fleet availability in 2026 and 2027.

“As of right now, 0,” the chief said when asked how many vehicles the department is buying in 2025. He and other department officials told council the police fleet includes 36 marked vehicles (two motorcycles and one transport van among them) and that patrol cars accumulate roughly 35,000–40,000 miles per year. The chief said departments typically get “2 to 3 years out of each patrol vehicle” before maintenance and reliability costs rise.

Council members pressed for specifics about lead time and the effect on response capability. The chief said ordering to road‑ready service takes about 16 months: cars arrive from the manufacturer after long waits, then are transported to an upfitter (the transcript referenced Winter Ford and other upfitting vendors), then outfitted with cages, light bars and radios, and finally striped and put into service. He said vehicles ordered in 2023 only reached the township in 2024; upfitting can add another two to four months.

The chief said some high‑mileage vehicles are recycled into lower‑demand uses — for example, to staff school resource officers or off‑duty “side job” assignments — and that those “side job” vehicles now have 120,000–140,000 miles and are at the end of their useful life. The department reported off‑duty assignment revenue of about $348,000 in 2024 (about $400,000 in 2023, per the chief), money the department said offsets personnel costs.

Council discussion covered possible approaches: spreading vehicle purchases over multiple budget years, committing to a larger purchase in a single year (as was done in 2021), or prioritizing purchases for the most‑critical patrol units. The chief said an ideal replacement plan would be roughly 10 vehicles per year; he said he could manage with eight but warned that “before we get replacement vehicles, the second half of next year and early into '27 is gonna be really bad” for fleet readiness.

Council members and the administration discussed alternatives raised by the chief and staff, including continued use of outside upfitters and recycling older patrol cars for lower‑demand duties. The chief and council also briefly discussed using stripped‑down or hybrid vehicles for long idle, engine‑on traffic or detail assignments; participants said that idea would require further analysis of reliability, procurement costs and the side‑job revenue model.

The budget line for undercover/anti‑crime vehicles was discussed separately from marked vehicles; the administration also flagged a dedicated vehicle‑accident repairs line (deductibles) that was budgeted at $19,000 this year versus $50,000 in 2024.

Ending

Council members said they would continue to seek options to fit some vehicle purchases into the capital program; no formal vote or change to the budget occurred during the discussion.