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Antioch police request larger training budget, wellness program and equipment upgrades
Summary
Police department presented requests including expanded license-plate-reader coverage, a wellness program for all staff, a planned increase in training to fund academy slots, and replacement/individual issuance of tasers; trustees questioned unfunded state mandates and operating impacts.
The Antioch Police Department told trustees it expects a heavier training and equipment year and asked the village to fund multiple personnel and capital items as part of the 2026–27 operating plan.
Chief Gutch (presenting the police budget) said the department’s operating budget is a little over $8.7 million. He described specific requests: expanding the village’s Flock license-plate-reader system by two cameras (raising the annual contract cost from roughly $12,500 to just under $19,000), a $12,200 wellness program extending annual confidential screenings and support services to all staff, a roughly $95,000 training budget (about a 130% increase from the prior year) to fund academy slots and leadership development, and a $274,000 equipment request to transition from a pool model to individual-issued tasers along with bundled training and consumables.
The chief said the LPR system has been a “force multiplier” for investigations — assisting with theft, hit-and-run, stolen-vehicle recovery and missing-person cases — and that camera placement will be data-driven if the board approves expansion. On the wellness program he said the village would provide annual confidential 1‑hour visits with licensed clinicians and that the program would be extended to civilian staff who may be exposed to traumatic material.
Trustees pressed on how state-level changes to custody and training (referred to in discussion as the "Safety Act") have shifted new, often unfunded, requirements to local departments and on retention pressures that drive academy enrollment costs. The chief said some of those requirements create hard-dollar training costs and soft costs (backfill and overtime) for a small department; he described an internal approach to expand in-house training capacity to reduce external training costs.
No formal vote on police budget line items was taken; staff will return with reconciled numbers and any recommended changes at the April 29 special meeting.
