Milford City Council left its fiscal 2026 budget unsettled Monday after a prolonged discussion about pay for police lieutenants and captains, the reliability of a consultant's staffing data and whether the city can fund proposed increases without raising taxes or employee insurance costs.

The council did not adopt the budget and instead directed city departments to "scrub" their FY26 requests and return with options to fund the police adjustments. Several council members said they expect staff to start from a "worst-case" cost estimate and then trim back if needed rather than assume new taxes or higher employee premiums.

The debate focused on three items: whether to raise police lieutenants' and captains' pay grades to prevent them from "capping out," the accuracy and availability of underlying comparator data from the consultant Evergreen (and related non-disclosure constraints), and how to fund any increase so the rest of the workforce is treated equitably.

Chief Ash, who said the department has been rebuilding and training its sworn leadership, argued the city risks losing senior officers if pay does not keep pace with regional comparators. "The last thing I want to see is for them to cap out and leave and go to a different organization because there is a massive drop," the chief said, adding that retraining staff every few years is "exhausting."

Several council members and the city manager pushed back on aspects of the consultant's memo presented to council. Councilwoman Laurie called the consultant memo "disappointing. It's embarrassing, and it's unfortunate" because, she said, it omitted data council expected to see and presented only limited funding scenarios that appeared to rely on raising taxes or employee insurance contributions.

City Manager Mark Whitfield and finance director Lou Vitola said they could present alternate funding options and that the memo provided multiple approaches for council consideration. Jamisha, representing the consultant team, told council the firm would provide the non-aggregate raw data for council review after a release was signed but asked that the raw data not be broadly posted because of antitrust concerns. "They don't have any issues with counsel reviewing that data individually. They just do not want it posted on any type of platforms or email distribution," Jamisha said, citing the Sherman Antitrust Act as the reason for the restriction.

Council members repeatedly said they want a fully transparent, citywide approach rather than what some described as a police-only solution. "We need to go back through and scrub and make sure that we have done justice for every single person that works for the city, not just the police," a council member said. Several members offered that funds could be found by trimming or reprioritizing capital or operating items and asked staff to return with line-by-line options.

Council direction: staff were asked to (a) identify how to fund the proposed police pay adjustments using existing FY26 budget lines and non-recurring reserves rather than broad tax increases or raising employee insurance costs; (b) provide the consultant's non-aggregate comparator data under controlled conditions; and (c) return with firm numbers either for Monday's meeting or at a planned workshop scheduled for June 16 to finalize details.

The council emphasized process safeguards: multiple members said they support public safety but want the pay adjustments to be data-driven, auditable and applied consistently across the workforce. The council did not vote on any ordinance or adopt any pay change at the meeting.

What happens next: the city manager and finance staff will work with department heads and the police chief to produce updated budget options and the requested comparator data. Council scheduled an additional workshop (June 16) and indicated it will not adopt the FY26 budget until it has the requested information.

Ending: Councilmembers repeatedly framed the issue as one of priorities and timing. Several said they prefer to find internal savings and reallocate resources rather than increase taxes, and all asked for clearer, auditable data to support any structural pay changes for sworn police ranks.