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Council postpones decision on extra staffing for red‑light camera prosecutions
Summary
After hearing the city attorney describe expected workload increases, council voted to postpone a supplemental appropriation request for additional prosecutors and support staff until year‑end 2024 revenue and budget numbers are available.
Loveland City Council voted to postpone consideration of a supplemental appropriation for additional personnel to support the city’s incoming red‑light camera program.
City Attorney Vince Junglas told council his office currently has roughly 0.5 FTE assigned to municipal prosecution and that experience from Fort Collins shows automated enforcement systems can generate thousands of additional citations and require dedicated prosecutorial and support staffing. He said Fort Collins deployed multiple prosecutors and two support staff for its program; Junglas asked council to authorize roughly 2.5 FTE (one full‑time prosecutor, one half‑time prosecutor and one full‑time prosecutorial support position) to manage the workload and ensure the city meets contract requirements with the camera vendor.
Junglas warned that if the city does not process camera citations according to the vendor business rules the contract’s self‑sustaining features could be jeopardized. The city manager said the city could delay hiring and must avoid creating a negative undesignated general‑fund balance; finance staff provided a preliminary estimate that adding the requested FTEs now would push the city’s undesignated general fund balance into the negative under current year‑end assumptions.
Councilors debated whether to approve the positions now or wait for final 2024 year‑end numbers. Several council members said they support resourcing the city attorney’s office but they also want to avoid committing money that would put the general fund at risk. Councilor McFall moved—and Councilor Olson seconded—a motion to postpone the ordinance until the audited or pre‑audit 2024 numbers are available so the city manager can confirm funding sources. The motion passed 7–1.
The council’s postponement leaves the contract with the camera vendor in place and allows staff time to return with year‑end budget numbers and an implementation schedule; staff said it will provide firm installation dates and revenue projections before returning the item to council.
