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Vero Beach council hears police request for more patrol and analytic staff as camera rollout lags
Summary
At a June budget workshop the Police Department asked council to consider adding two community policing officers, a crime analyst and restoring two vacant sworn positions. Council members and the chief discussed costs, overtime offsets, delayed camera installations from the vendor and a $300,000 state grant for records/RMS work.
The Vero Beach City Council budget workshop on June 12 heard a request from the Police Department for new staff and technology as part of next year’s budget deliberations.
Police leadership presented a proposal that originally included four new positions — two community policing unit (CPU) officers, one crime analyst and one airport-funded officer — plus changes to the department’s supervisory structure. After recent health insurance and police pension cost increases, staff removed hiring for most new positions from the proposed baseline and froze five vacancies; two of the frozen positions are in the police department. Council asked staff to return to the next meeting with the fully loaded costs to unfreeze two of those positions and to show the incremental cost of adding the two CPU officers and the analyst as an a la carte package.
Why it matters: council members said the community supports increased visible policing downtown and on the beach and that council must weigh public safety needs against overall budget pressures.…
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