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Winston police chief says budget shortfall will force cuts to community programs, vows not to lay off officers
Summary
Police Chief Sarty told the city council the department faces a large budget gap and will scale back community events and some technology subscriptions — including the Flock camera network — while preserving sworn officer positions; councilors were briefed on overtime costs from July 4 events and radio-system interoperability challenges.
Chief Sarty, Winston’s police chief, told the council that the department is facing “the worst” budget he has seen in his time working with city budgets and outlined a series of program reductions intended to protect core public-safety services.
“We're gonna be shutting those down,” Sarty said of the Flock camera subscription, citing an annual cost of about $24,000. He credited the network with helping solve high‑level crimes but said the city cannot sustain the recurring cost.
Sarty listed a range of community-facing activities that will be paused or scaled back this year, including foster‑fun days, Dream Nights, the Halloween trunk‑or‑treat, Canines with Cops, and other outreach events. He also said the department will pause cadet and reserve recruitment activity for now while keeping existing reserves in place.
On staffing, Sarty told the council, “I will not lay an officer off,” and stressed that his goal is to preserve investigative capacity and core patrol functions despite cuts to nonessential programming and equipment purchases.
He described several revenue and cost‑management steps already taken by the municipal court and police administration: online payment and diversion programs have increased court receipts, and certain administrative fees were raised (fix‑it ticket amounts, motion‑filing fees, and program fees for diversion). Still, he said, those gains will not fully close the department’s projected shortfalls.
Sarty also flagged a technical and financial dispute over radio equipment purchased for the city. He said Winston purchased a Motorola radio platform with vehicle radios, repeaters and portables (a deployment he described as near $380,000) but that county upgrades favored a different product (Kenwood), creating interoperability and P25 capability gaps. He cited estimates of $40,000–$80,000 to upgrade equipment to full interoperability and said the county has proposed a multi‑year payment plan to address the issue.
The chief said he is pursuing federal and state grant opportunities — including a COPS hiring grant — to offset personnel costs and preserve service levels. He asked the council to be aware that cutting community programs is aimed at protecting core public safety and investigative work.
The discussion came as council members reviewed the overtime and comp‑time impacts from the city’s recent Fourth of July events. Staff presented an initial cost estimate for parade and fireworks operations and related comp‑time accruals that raised the event’s total cost to about $13,536, higher than the earlier $8,900 estimate.
What happens next: the council heard the chief’s report and budgetary context; no formal spending decisions beyond the items in the adopted budget were made at the meeting.
