Laramie Police Seek Modest Supplemental Increases for Training, Records Cloud Migration and Community Programs; Propose AI Parking Enforcement Pilot

Chief Brian Brown, Laramie Police Department, told the Laramie City Council on May 14 that the department is asking for four modest supplemental budget increases — for training, community engagement, cloud storage for records and equipment and operations — and described several program priorities including continuation of the Albany Cure Team, downtown parking enforcement options and an ongoing CAD/RMS cloud migration.

Brown said the department requested a $22,000 increase in its training budget, noting the city has not raised that line since 2016 and that training requirements have expanded to include firearms, use-of-force, taser and anticipated search-and-seizure instruction. He told the council the department also “received reimbursement through Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs” totaling about $24,000 this year, and that the new request would be offset by that funding. “We will not discontinue our CIT program,” Brown said, referring to the department’s crisis intervention team training.

The chief reported ongoing staffing turnover: four recent retirements, a fifth expected in June and additional near-term departures. He said promotional testing for sergeants is May 28, lieutenant testing June 4 and assistant chief interviews June 11. Brown said a nationwide search for assistant chief produced 16 applicants and four finalists including one internal candidate.

On technology, Brown summarized a multi-year upgrade of the police department’s computer-aided dispatch and records management systems (CAD/RMS). He said an earlier vendor quote totaled about $233,000 for cloud storage but that review with IT Director Rhodes and Director Wade reduced the city’s additional request to about $42,000 by leveraging existing cloud services. Brown described the request as “essentially a continuation of our CAD/RMS upgrades to move all of our storage … into that cloud integration.”

The department also asked for $20,000 for equipment and operations, citing broad inflation-driven cost increases for items such as ammunition. Brown said some of that request would support a new vehicle-boot program tied to the city’s recent parking fine ordinance: rather than seeking warrants for drivers with multiple unpaid violations, the department would place boots on vehicles. He said boot prices vary by vehicle and vendor — “it ranges from about $1,500 to $7,000 per boot” — and estimated the city would need six to eight boots a year, with an expectation that some would be damaged or lost in use.

Brown outlined community engagement needs and a $5,000 request for promotional materials, saying the department’s engagement team attended roughly 64 events last year. He described a missing-child “DNA kit” as a child-oriented outreach tool that helps children record identifying information and practice fingerprinting with family members.

Brown described the Albany Cure Team (ACT) partnership, funded in part by the city, the University of Wyoming Police Department, the sheriff’s office and Volunteers of America (VOA). He said VOA’s local supervisor, Kristen Covello, recently moved to the county and VOA staff have provided wellness services and on-call follow-up after mental-health responses. Brown said the ACT partnership helped route mental-health calls to VOA for timely outreach and that the city’s mental-health crisis call volume has fallen about 25% from a 2‑year‑old baseline; he did not attribute the full decline to ACT alone.

The chief also described an RFP for downtown parking enforcement that would use automated license‑plate reading or an AI-based third-party vendor to detect two‑hour parking violations and issue citations without full-time officer rechecks. “Our preference would be to completely take the human response out of it,” Brown said, while acknowledging infrastructure limits — inconsistent power and Wi‑Fi along downtown rights-of-way — and saying vendors had discussed solar and business Wi‑Fi partnerships as workarounds. He said some Wyoming communities use license‑plate readers on patrol vehicles but that he knew of no Wyoming city using the technology solely for automated parking enforcement; he cited Alhambra, California, as an example outside the state.

On emergency communications funding and records retention, Brown told the council that software and storage costs for body-worn camera and dispatch recordings are rising and that recommendations from the Wyoming State Archives are increasing retention expectations. He said the department currently retains routine noncriminal citizen-contact recordings for three months; “the minimum for right now for us is 3 months,” he said, while criminal or evidentiary material may require much longer retention. Brown said he is part of a governor’s public-safety communications committee pursuing legislation that would permit local governments to charge up to $5 for E‑911-related costs to help offset LARC (local emergency communications) budget shortfalls.

City Manager Janine Jordan and Director Wade described the police requests as smaller than 1% of the department’s approved budget. Director Wade said the total approved police budget for the year is $9,680,000 and that the net recommended adjustments for LARC cost‑sharing equate to $80,731 after the county’s 20% share is considered.

Council discussion touched on the cost and durability of different parking‑enforcement systems, the mechanics of the boot program and whether the ACT contract and opioid-settlement funding could support continued VOA coverage. Brown said personnel and operational details remain under development and that he would return with more specific proposals and, where required, formal budget amendments.

The council did not take final action on the supplemental requests during the May 14 work session; staff presented recommended adjustments for council consideration as part of the budget process and signaled follow-up reporting and possible ordinances or amendments would appear on later agendas.