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Council approves Lone Peak Public Safety tentative budget with wage adjustments and new supervisor post
Summary
Highland council approved the Lone Peak Public Safety District tentative budget, backing a 5% market wage adjustment for police, a new police sergeant position, use of fund balance to buy vehicles and funding to pilot AI-assisted report-writing software.
Highland City Council voted April 21 to approve the Lone Peak Public Safety Districts FY2026——27 tentative budget, which includes wage adjustments, staffing changes and a plan to use reserve funds for vehicle purchases.
The boards tentative plan provides a 5% market adjustment for police salaries targeted to close gaps with neighboring agencies and proposes a new police sergeant (supervisory) position to address supervisory gaps identified in call data. The police budget also sets aside funds to pilot AI-assisted report-writing software intended to reduce officersreporting time by automating initial drafts from body-camera footage and structured interview data.
Fire-budget changes include a combined step/merit and market approach for wages, and a financing-formula change that reduces Highlands assessment this year and produces a modest refund tied to the districts fund-balance position. The district proposed purchasing vehicles outright using available fund balance rather than leasing to reduce long-term lease costs.
Chief Williams described the AI initiative as a productivity tool: it would ingest body-cam footage and assist with initial report drafting while leaving oversight and edits to officers. "It downloads because they have to wear body cams everywhere, right? So it uses that body cam footage and then writes a report based on the body cam footage," he told council; Lone Peak cautioned the software requires human review.
Council members expressed concern about multi-year wage-growth trends across the district and the long-term affordability of ongoing increases, and asked staff to monitor revenues and potential future public-safety funding options if local revenues slow. Council Member Smith observed that district operating costs have increased substantially over several years and asked staff to continue work on long-term revenue scenarios.
The council adopted the tentative budget on a 5——0 vote and asked Lone Peak staff to provide comparative staffing and call-volume data and to continue coordination about program costs and future revenue scenarios.
