Board of Town Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Now 4.30. so the bellaire board of town commissioners budget work session meeting for april the 30th at 4 30 p.m is now in order um the sound system is not on oh my gosh mike no wonder i'm like wondering why i can't hear anything can you hear me all right can you hear me can you hear me now okay here we go april 30th 2026 it is now 4 30 p.m and the bellaire board of town commissioners budget work session is now in order um i'm going to call the roll commissioner false

Present.

Commissioner Chismore?

Here.

Commissioner Taylor?

Here.

And Commissioner Hanley? Here. All right everybody's here so first may I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Thank you do I have a second? Second. All right any discussion or changes to the agenda? No? All right in that case all in favor? Aye. That's unanimous and now we move on to the fiscal year 2027 budget discussion. First presentation is by the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company.

Their letter is on page 123. Thank you. Gentlemen, if you want to come on up, you're more than welcome.

You get the podium, and tonight you are not limited to three minutes.

Good evening. Thank you again for having us. First, we want to thank you and apologize. Our president, Joe Rutherford, who was here with me last year, was unable to make it due to medical reasons. But I'm here along with the chief. Again, I'm Todd McKinney. I'm the vice president of the company. And Chief Scott Panowitz is also with me in attendance. We were hoping to bring our brand new ladder truck and park it out front. We talked about it a lot last year and we were discussing that that beautiful piece of equipment was $2.4 million. It is in service. It is up street ready to roll and it's been on. I can't tell you how many calls since we got it in service again. Just to remind you that replaced a truck that was 20 years old. The 20-year-old truck, which we tried to sell in the market, did not sell, partly because of its age and because of its limited abilities. We donated that to a Sioux tribe in the middle of North Dakota. They have a response area of 600 square miles, and they had two brush trucks and one fire truck. They've never even owned a ladder truck. So they were ecstatic and extremely pleased and very thankful. Some of the other community fire companies donated equipment. We loaded it up and drove it out there. And then two chiefs followed and did training with it. So it was a very nice win-win for the company and of course for the Sioux tribe. But again, that's one of the reasons why two years ago we wrote that letter asking for the incremental increase in budget over the several couple years that we played out in that letter and basically we repeated that letter to miss moody this year but just by showing how we would like to do that incremental increase uh we appreciated the generosity from last year with that increase of just a little over 30k um but again that was an increment of 300k over three years on top of what you originally gave from the 164 in 2024. so hopefully that math is making sense so we're hoping to still do that and get to that incremental increase we understand that There's been a lot going on with the town purchasing new other new emergency vehicles with Chief Moore and then of course I know Public Works has also increased their trucks and their new leaf collection trucks as well as the pickups. So I know you're fully aware of the cost of those vehicles. The most expensive I think was 190K and that was that leaf truck. again I just mentioned that our truck was 2.4 million dollars at least it wasn't 2.4 million dollars exactly it was a number that caught our attention as I mentioned that we just ordered two new fire trucks because of Covid there is actually a four-year delay on the build of equipment like that so we had to put the order in We are getting ready to refurb a 2007 engine. And when you refurb it, you basically replace the chassis, do a little work to the body, and put the body on a new chassis. Again, that's to save money and to show you where the company is. Just like you guys have that calendar of when to replace vehicles, we do as well. Our typical calendar is seven years for a fire truck. We have not been able to meet that due to budget restraints. So I'm sharing all of this with you to show you the dire need for that incremental increase that we've requested two years ago. One thing we noticed in the budget, I was just talking to Chief Moore about that, is that the town bills for false alarms. We suggest do the same on our side. The number of false alarms that we go to is unbelievable. We've tried to work the county with the county on this, and the county has been very slow to react. Sometimes they do. And usually it's that three strike rule. You know, if we go to the same alarm three times, then they get that bill. And I think it's a hundred dollars with police.

Your third offense is $100. So we actually went to the county and asked them to increase that to $500 or more just because people just pay it. It's not a deterrent. Our plea to the county was we need something significant just to stop these. There's been times we've run the same building five, six times. within like a two or three hour period and it just gets I mean it it limits our resources you know our members don't want to come in you know because they know it's they know it's going to be a faulty alarm you know just because of the reoccurrence of the same the same address

And are those faulty is that what's what is you know why are you getting false alarms repeatedly from the same place?

Sometimes they have a lot of times they'll have their smoke detectors installed in the wrong place sometimes again a lot of times it comes where they're too close to the kitchen and just whatever the occupant is cooking you know they're not a good cook right so so they're burning something and the smoke detectors go off sometimes it's just a faulty panel just due to age and they don't have any incentive to replace it so

So you were saying about a resident with a smoke alarm that goes off, but that's not wired directly into- We're talking commercial. You're talking commercial. Commercial. Commercial would be generate an automatic alarm of it. Correct.

There are some one and two story dwellings that do have a fire alarm system that do report to a central station and call out. But the majority of what we run is commercial structures.

And how often would you say that occurs? On a weekly basis? Sometimes hourly.

I mean, it's on a daily basis. Yeah.

So just to put into perspective, again, the fire company averages 15 calls a day.

Right.

Not 15 false alarms, but 15 calls of service. So...

and only the only the county can dictate the the fine right now that's the only that's you the only law that's written correct it's the only law that's written correct okay you couldn't do that yourselves we don't have a limit we're only part of a very little small area right your area yeah right no we don't have the ability to right to do that so

But just as a suggestion, again, if it's working with Chief Moore and his department, maybe it's something to look at, because it's possibly revenue that's not being collected that could help with our budget through the town, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if local legislation, we have local legislation, right, for alarms?

right for the town of Bel Air I'm wondering if that could apply for them if it was an alarm that occurred in the town of Bel Air I mean we could look at that right and that's yeah that's yeah and we'll definitely take a look at that I wasn't aware that there were first false alarms that were not being picked up when they installed the incinerator it wasn't installed properly we were going there I don't know how many times Chief, please go ahead.

Yeah, the only thing that I really wanted to bring up is just with the amount of construction that's going on in town, you know, and we're building bigger structures. So going back to what I was saying about the ladder trucks is due to the size of the structures, we really need two ladder trucks. So now we're replacing two units at 2.4 million. And just so everyone's aware, what we call our in-town boxes, which are everything in the town of Bel Air, those are still our busiest boxes that we run compared, you know, together compared to running out the forest hill at 924 out to churchville that we still run more in town than any than any of these other boxes and with this construction we really believe that going forward and for the next year or two it's going to it's going to be the first time since the 1970s that the increase of calls in town is fast is going at a faster rate than out of town it's so that's that's one thing again that we're that we're looking at we do have an incentive program we have a live-in program that we started I think we've talked about the last couple years we actually have members that live at the firehouse they have to pull 144 hours of duty a month and they actually have an individual room at the firehouse that's really helped us because the other thing is again outside you know with the building and construction is coming as everybody knows you can't get to the firehouse very quickly if there's a call right we we actually have an incentive program too where it's duty-based um you have to be at the firehouse you know again it's um to incentivize members to be there because we have to be at the firehouse some of the other stations still have the ability to respond from home we don't we have to be in the firehouse so again those are things especially with you have different programs that come up like recruitment and retention like if you can remember us and help us help us out with that again with the incentive program if there's things you know again just kind of again we're it's it's we're getting busier and busier as it's going on again and again a lot of times I think that kind of we should be associated more with what the police department's doing than any of the other organizations because that's the most closest to what we're doing you know the other thing too is you know the city of Annapolis has a fire department they run fire on the fire department size they they run pretty similar to what we do and they get 22% of the Annapolis budget so again you know we're we're appreciative of everything that we get but again I think as again as all this construction is going on you know we're just asking that you please remember you know it has a dramatic effect on us again we're we're staffing and monitoring and responding 24 24 hours a day what questions do you all have please advise

What is the max reach on your new ladder truck? 100 foot. Okay.

Now, when I say that, it's 100 foot when it's raised at an angle. Now, we're starting to get into the fact now where the buildings need it. Right now where we need it is our townhouses and single family dwellings because people are parked out front. We need that 100 foot reach to actually get to the roof. So again, in the past, that's where we've needed it. Now we're actually getting to, we do need that elevation to get to these taller structures. so what I'm curious about and I don't expect you to have this information today but I would like to know how many calls you go to that are in town resident addresses commercial you know we had last it's 2020 so last year we had 22,675 calls 22% of those were in town so that ends up being I think I printed this out bad I think it's somewhere around 500 I'm guessing yeah 22% yeah 22% of that is in town and it's kind of crazy too because it's always been consistent like even as like Forest Hill grew in population and stuff it's those numbers have always been pretty consistent across the board. And again, like I said, even in town, like I said, forever has been the busiest boxes.

My other question is I'm curious about how many false alarms are generated from town properties.

That I'd have to run.

Yeah. I'm just, I'm curious because I do think we should take a look at the false alarm statute. I remember that the county has one in their code and it's a fine structure that they've you know set out in their legislation and I'm not 100% sure we can do it with our town code but we will take a look at it and see if we can because it is it is really a terrible burden on you plus they're taking you away from somebody else who needs to show up when there's nothing really going on here you're just you know kind of wasting your time and somebody else really needs a fire truck to show up so

like the old story crying wolf it is you know you do it too many times and you know you know like you said guys don't want to come in no one just it's them again don't worry about it but it might be the real one and our experience with that is it doesn't seem like they really care i don't know right we've gotten a hold of them uh some of the uh higher vile higher level violators and It's reduced sometimes, but then it'll just go right back up again. It's hard to explain.

I think they look at it as like the cost of doing business. I think so. And I think you're right that $100 is not enough to get the attention. It would get my attention, but I would probably not.

I think most corporations just pay it. I think you're right you know this is going back a bit but the only time I ever remember anybody getting upset was we ran Kmart a couple times and there happened that day there happened to be I don't know what position he was he was a vice president or something and he just happened to be there and we're like hey you know this is like the third time we've been here in two days and he's like what you guys I'll get it fixed today you know yeah but prior to that you know if they were just just pushing the funds up and I guess you know somebody's Paying it because they're not getting up in the middle of the night.

Cost of doing business and we're getting it to the attention of the right people to say this is really wrong for you to do this, fix your alarm problem, whatever it is. Correct. Anybody else?

I've heard there's a lot more training and certifications that are required for volunteers. How long does it take from the time somebody reaches out and says I'm interested in being a volunteer to being able to actually serve?

so there's there's there's two two aspects to it we have our in-house orientation so that typically is about 24 to 30 hours and then once a member goes through that they can ride is what we call a yellow shield so they can go on a fire truck but they can't they can't go inside they can't actually fight the fire once a member joins they have two years to get firefighter one certification through bifri and that that runs about 150 hours So and then once they pass that, then they go through, we give them another in-house test and then they become what we call a red shield. And then they're they had the ability to actually go be an interior operating on the interior of a structure fire.

Has it been challenged challenging finding people that are willing to go through through that process?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Most people want to do that. And I don't mean to stereotype, but that quick tick tock video that they just helped planted flowers at the playground and they met their volunteer hours.

they don't want to commit the time it needs that we need right yeah we've actually we've actually actually changed our membership interviews like we actually here put a pack on run up and down the parking garage a couple times um you know to make sure that you know hey this is a physical thing you know and really make sure we stress the amount of hours that's going to be because that's the other thing too we don't want to put our training staff have them waste their time you know halfway through somebody this isn't for me so we've like I said we've really tried to be very upfront with new members so they have a full understanding of what they're getting themselves into

One thing you may not be aware of, we do still have an ambulance and still have volunteer EMS providers. Even though the county took over the EMS program for the county, we did keep one of the three ambulances for volunteers. So we have about 30 EMS providers as well. And their training is similar to what Scott just laid out. Yeah, theirs is actually longer. It's actually longer to be a certified EMT.

Yeah.

But that runs many a cause. And because the county is growing, the fire trucks go on a lot of medical calls too as a first responder because you might have the ambulance coming out of Darlington here. So the engine will come here and they'll handle it until that ambulance gets there. That happens a lot as well.

Anyone else? Well, certainly thanks for being here and making your presentation, and thanks for all you do. Sorry about all the false alarms. We'll have to look into that. That's terrible.

I'll look into it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Take care. By the way, the invitation is always open. If you ever want to come down toward the station, we talked about that last year as well. We'd love to host you. If you want to attend one of our company meetings, it's always the first Tuesday of every month. Just reach out, and we'd be glad to host any of you.

I know I was there for the big... No, the big open house. Yeah, it was very well attended. I mean, lots of fire equipment that you could touch the trucks and the display of pulling the car apart was very popular. It was pretty cool. It's sad how little there is to a car anymore.

For the first time last year with Chief Moore's assistance, we actually closed Conowingo Road or Inquiry Avenue. Right. So that was nice. We plan to do that again this year. Right.

That was great. You had a lot of people there. It was like a really fun day for everybody. And to watch everybody work was great.

And I know you'll see us win again the trophy. We won last year.

That's it.

We're ready.

It's coming up. I would love a tour.

I would love a tour.

Let us know. If anybody wants to come for a ride along, we'll let you ride a fire truck for the night.

Are you serious? No driving the fire truck.

$2.4 million. No driving.

I would love that Who do I just call?

Call the business office and talk to Judy and they'd be glad to schedule it

all right so I don't see anybody for the Boys and Girls Club here no I was just emailing Derek I do see somebody here from Lassos so I say we go ahead with yeah come on up Melinda the letter for Lassos is on page 115 it's like school we all have to turn to the right page in our books Melinda all right I think we're all there so the floor is yours

Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. As you know, I'm Melinda. I am the Executive Director of LASOS. We've worked in partnership with the town of Bel Air for the last 16 years. It's so hard to believe it's been around that long. We currently are serving over 4,100 residents here local in the 21014, about 2,700 that are actually in our area. little small three mile wide area of the town of Bel Air. Last year for summer, we had hosted over 357 students for summer camp for the month of July. This year, we're looking to extend that we have the opportunity with Harford County Public Schools to actually offer a program for the kids who have nine credits that they have to pass in order to graduate. So they need one credit in the summertime so they can actually graduate on time. And so with the collaboration with Harford County Public Schools, we're able to offer that program. We're the only organization in the county that does something like that. and so we're hoping to get those extra 15 to 16 kids over the finish line that would be keeping them back because there's only one class left they don't we tend to lose them so we're really excited about that opportunity as you know our partnership with the town of bel-air police department has just continues to grow we worked this year with uh with the sheriff with the police department on a missing person that had been missing since 2015 as soon as it was turned over to the chief, the chief sent the detective to come see us. And I was like, oh yeah, we know where she is. Like we can tell you exactly, here she is. And so, you know, we were able to kind of work with them and close that case. And so it was a great way to show kind of the partnership that was there. She was thankful to be off of this milk carton registry and to be able to kind of, you know, just show the community that we're all about. How do we keep us all safe as we continue to, live this ever-changing world that we live in. So we continue to offer literacy programs. We do a lot of work with small. The concept of families becoming fiscally secure, how can they become self-sustaining? What are those processes? So we're working a lot with the financial literacy piece as we're helping our community kind of mix and mingle and become who they are today. So do you have any questions for me?

I just remember we worked together at Bellary Middle and you said, I'm gonna start a nonprofit. And I'm like, wow, how do you do that?

2009.

Yep. And then you did it. And you do so much, it's crazy. Like even, I can remember there was a family that needed dishes or they needed sheets or they need coats or something and you take care of it. So it's unbelievable what you've done and what you've built. Thanks.

So summer camp again this year?

I just did some hiring this afternoon so that we could make sure we had enough staff to student ratio and talk to the bus drivers about how do we handle traffic you know making sure we're doing what's best for kids as you know on Fridays we're here in town So when you're walking around and you see all these kids like that's what's happening. I think the coolest part about the work in the summer is the fact that they truly become a part of our community. And those who don't live in a town know what it's like to live in a town. And I just had this really cool call before I came. But please, I promise not to cry. But she called because the house that she's renting over off of Franklin just got put up for sale. And she was like, we don't want to move from our community. You know, can you find somebody to buy this house so we can stay? We don't want to leave the town of Bel Air. And that means we've done something right, right? She's raised her kids. She continues to raise her kids. She's welcomed, and we have created that type of community. And so for us, I mean, literally I see her like elementary school kid running up Broadway to go to ShopRite, right? And I'm like, okay, she's in fifth grade. She's allowed to do that. But as a parent, that's nervous. And then I thought, we're in Bel Air. How awesome is that the kids feel that safe that they can run from Franklin up to Broadway to get what they need from ShopRite. So just, you know, wonderful things happen. It takes all of us to create what we do, but we're thankful for everything that you do to support us.

Right. Thank you very much. Yeah.

I passed around. Oh.

No. You are part of that. We're grateful for what you do for the community. It was a great program.

It's beautiful, but yeah, we want to be in there. Great, thanks. You have to just look through it. It's so cool to see the kids. July 6th to the 31st. If you're around, I'd love for you to come and meet the kids and see the work. Truly, you're just getting them up. Are we good, Ms. Pollack?

Yes, ma'am, we are.

Thank you. You guys take care. Thank you for your time.

Thanks, Mel.

Where's your camp? Melinda, where is it? It's just right in town?

Yeah, well, this year we had to get moved to South Hampton. We're always in Bel Air, and so this year they moved to South Hampton because they want to clean the floors.

That's fine.

So we're just right over here. We've already figured out how. yeah walk at broadway and you know no matter what fridays we're in town we're at the armory it's just a little bit different but yeah so we're going out of stocking for this year and then hopefully next year we'll be back i'm sure dr miller would love to have you she's awesome yeah i mean we have a great relationship with them but you know i have a head of his it was cheap so you know how do i still yeah it's just great like you know the deputies come and they

thank you absolutely all right since there's nobody here from the Boys and Girls Club yet Lisa I think the rest of the show is yours and the Chiefs I don't know who's going first

There we go. All by myself. Is that a message? I'll try to cut it down.

I'll cut the notes down here.

so uh greetings commissioners director is i guess mike's still a director well maybe not uh and citizens bel air i'm chuck moore i'm the chief of the bel air police department i'll be giving the review of the fy 27 police department budget and my objective is as in the past i'll highlight some of the items anomalies of increases expense increases comparisons between this year and last year you know heavy expenses increases and items of interest that I think that you should know about and the citizens should be aware of but before we start I want to extend my appreciation to the commissioners and the other directors You all have striven to make this, it's my goal and your goal too, to still make this the safest place in Maryland. We were up there a few times in the past. We've gone back because of some challenges in the state of Maryland and other places, especially as it relates to retail theft. But I want us to get there again. And I think some of the things that you've done for the police department and the citizens, as far as the technology, surveillance stuff that safety surveillance stuff that we've done the additions that we've you've helped with the staffing including some moving around trying to get maximize performance in some of the positions that we've had you you understand that you notice there might be some changes needed here and there and I really appreciate that you're willing to do that in the in these budget sessions so with that we'll go ahead and start and page 137 and line item 0100 salaries of the non sworn and I have a lot of notes and I know it's It's not the biggest line item, but this one has occupied my time trying to figure out how to make some changes in the record information coordinator's position, and I think we call it now the police support position, Mike? Did we change the name? But at any rate, it's still the same position. So we have a part-time person in this position right now that is funded through the Police Accountability and Transparency Act, the PAC grant through the governor's office. and we typically get around 15,000 for that position but again it's part-time and the responsibility is to basically audit body-worn camera footage of the officers and that's something that I think it's unique to the Bel Air Police Department you know a lot of other agencies rely on supervisors and things to do that but i like us to be consistent and i like to to make sure not that it's not done in other police departments but there is a person obligated for this responsibility because the officers know that we're inspecting what we expect and uh you know there's some other quotes out there uh trust but verify and all that kind of stuff but they know that there's somebody in the background checking things out and when we see good stuff we mostly it's good stuff 99 of the time we say hey this is great great work and it's just planting the seed and in the deficiencies we bring to their attention too but we're we've come to a challenge here because our full-time police support person left in February and with with little to no notice and it left us in kind of a bad position because The primary responsibilities associated with that position are immense, enormous, and it's critical. If things don't run right in that position, we've got some problems, including the NIBRS, and I think I've run this by you before, the National Incident-Based Reporting System, and that's the method of reporting crime to the state of Maryland and the FBI. They're responsible to make sure that that's run right. There can only be a 4% or less error rate in six months of data that's collected when it's audited by the state. We can't afford to have mistakes there. And if it doesn't go right, we have the potential of losing grant funding to the amount of around $260,000. So that's the way they kind of strong-arm us to make sure that it's done. And we transitioned to that new system two years ago, and it was a very laborious act to do the transition. and then we find out again that they're going to do some more modifications to that system and we're going to have to be recertified again and it's not going to be an easy task so she was responsible for that she was also responsible for the Public Information Act and FOIA request that we get, and as an example, I did an analysis between 2024 and 2025. There were 601 requests in 2024 and 652 in 2025. And some of these are complicated requests. These people, I don't understand. I do know why they're doing it, but it's kind of disgusting to me. They're requesting some of the information on some very sensitive cases that I really wouldn't like to see out there, like homicides and things like that. But sometimes we're obligated to do it. but saying that means that meaning that they have you have to have a lot of expertise to be able to know what to cut loose what you can what you can't cut loose if you cut something loose that you're not supposed to we could get sued if you don't do it within a certain time frame you're going to get sued all this kind of stuff and that person has a lot of had a lot of expertise in that area I could go on and on there's a whole lot of other responsibilities that they're responsible for but at any rate we we had some challenges to try to get somebody up to speed in in very very fast pace and some of that some of the blame for that for the concession lack of concession planning and secession planning could be come back to me but you know we're small agency we only have certain amount of people and she was supposed to tell me when she was going to leave and didn't happen gave me two days notice So I want to extend some thanks and appreciation to the Aberdeen Police Department who did, we help each other out a lot. The chief over there and his administrative staff, they're very knowledgeable and they have the expertise. They came down and basically put their finger in the hole in the dike for us for a little while and actually helped us train up a person to get them going. so but what I would like to do going around all the way around the the barn here is I would like to have this position absorbed into another part-time position and we have another part-time position of a like a finance record clerk that retired recently so maybe consolidate those and have another part-time position to help the full time out so we don't have this issue in the future so it's long-winded I know but it's pretty important to me but you know there's a lot of liability threats that you know we have to be aware of in this in this spot here so

I'm just sort of confused on the number of people. I certainly support having a full-time person who's doing those FOIA requests or MPIA requests because they can be complicated. And if you give out information on an ongoing investigation, you could compromise it. And I know information falls into three categories, things you have to give out, things you cannot give out and then things that are in that gray area so it really does take a lot of time on many of those to go through everything when somebody gives you a request and 654 requests is a lot I'm sure some of them are just I need the accident report from you know March 30th or something and those are pretty simple but the rest of them can be rather time-consuming so I'm 100% on board with that so we're taking

just tell me how many people we currently have part-time in a full-time so we have we have two part-times and I'm not sure if this the first one here the first bullet you see that's funded by go cap right now sometimes we don't know if we're gonna get the funding or not for that you know it's that's unpredictable but I think I think we can get it and then we have another part-time position that helped upstairs with the finance stuff and our lead clerical person is going to assume those responsibilities that that part-time person had so you know that's what that's that's my thought process yeah Kimmy's gonna take over that stuff Kimmy and Steve I think they can do it and then and it's just just a thought process in my mind of how I can get somebody down there that to do this part-time and so we don't run into this issue of you know somebody vacating that spot and we don't have somebody immediately trained up to be able to jump in there if we have to so

So you're going to have a full-time person doing it and then a part-time person who would be cross-trained so that you've got extra help or somebody in the wings.

And the full-time person replaces the one that resigned abruptly? Yes, sir. Okay, so we're just adding a part, basically adding a part-time. Yes, sir.

yeah and the part-time would probably be in like the evening hours because i have an idea who wants to you know kind of already in there doing that job and assisting the full-time so

So by part-time, you mean about 24 hours a week? Is that how you define part-time?

I don't know. 20, yes. 20? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So with that one out of the way, we'll go to the next one, the lead executive officer position. We're still continuing to support that. That is our advocate that is out in the community that is helping, you know, the initial – Origination of that position was based on the opioid epidemic. At the height of the opioid epidemic in 2017, unbelievably we had 33 overdoses with five fatalities, very tragic. But amazingly right now, over the past two years, we've had two overdoses. So I think this system has worked, that philosophy has worked very well. so we've expanded the responsibility of the executive officer to help with the homeless population in town those experiencing some financial poverty financial problems and a big source of calls that we get nowadays are mental illness calls I haven't done the percentages but I would say 30 40 percent of the calls we have are related to mental illness so he's a huge does a great job with that he also partners with the klein family center harvard county is fortunate to have a facilities like that and i think it's uh they're not everywhere and you know people from baltimore all over the uh this side of the state go to the client center and he's a partner with them and they have some reps there that started lead in the municipalities of aberdeen and habit of grace So it's working over there now too. And Chip, you know, they're kind of a good team, a lot of teamwork there. And he's also a partner in the Seniors and Citizens in Need Group Committee. So that kind of gives them a tool in their arsenal and their tool belt for when we do have some problems here that he could help with. It gives them something to use. So he's there for them. so we'll continue to support that lastly in the non-sworn section we would like to create a supervisory position in the dispatch section and some of the expertise and i kind of went kind of went over in the record information coordinator expertise and talent and the the ability to navigate the technology advances they kind of fall within this too it's becoming a very expertise oriented position and what we've done in the past traditionally is we've relied on supervisors to oversee them and unfortunately they just don't have the they just don't have the know-how or the the background or the skill set to be able to understand what's going on in there so what I'd like to do is to create a supervisory position that can be able to oversee them and And, you know, with your help, we've increased the staffing in there to eight. There used to be like five, I think, six, five to six and a couple part time. So I think that would help a lot with that.

Just just to clarify that that's just promoting an existing not adding.

Correct.

Another supervisor.

And they would be required to also work shifts shifts also.

Right. So you just be promoting one and it'd be an increase in.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And the calls for service have increased significantly. Well, It seems like the calls for service have increased. I've run the numbers, and the numbers don't seem as high. And I've checked with other municipalities, and they're seeing the same thing. We don't understand why. Maybe it's because officers are running from call to call, and they don't have the time to initiate the calls themselves. But it seems very busy, so we try to have double coverage in there during the busiest times, too. So just for your awareness.

And you have a terrific response time, particularly when something happens on Main Street and the call comes directly into the non-emergency line in the police department. That was really quick.

So we had a hit and run the other day at Hickory Avenue, and we have a person that's interested in lateraling over, riding with Officer Green. He passed the car that was involved in the hit and run right down by the parking garage, had a small, well, he followed it pretty closely for a little bit blew through the light there at 22 and it crashed so we ended up having not one but two DUIs because the two women apparently one was hardly had hardly any clothes on she had you know underwear that's about it but they were both drunk and they switched drivers while they were going down the street but the response time was incredible he's right there And the officer that wants the lateral, he put his application in the next day. So he was pretty excited about that. But, yes, the response time we have is incredible. So that's all I have for non-sworn. Does anybody have any questions on that?

Just approximately, what would the increase in salary be then for the supervisor?

It's about $4,000 or $5,000. It would go from GS-160 to GS-170. So about $5,000. Yes, sir. Okay, correct on that Lisa. Too bad. No.

I knew Mr. Chisholm.

I don't have that exact number because it's built into here. vacations, promotions, new hires leave payouts line on page 135.

I see a lot of GS 160s.

I don't see any 170s.

I see a 180. And a 200. I mean, it depends on who it is, but. On a page like 136, 135.

It's probably around four.

Pardon?

Probably around four. Okay.

Okay. In fairness to the chief, he did say four or 5,000, so.

Then I think he went to five.

She usually corrects me, and she's usually right.

Well, from a budgeting point of view, I'll use the five number. That way you're safe. Right? Yeah, just from my perspective of saying was it worth it. Yeah, it's already built in.

So we'll go to salaries of the sworn, and I've neglected to give the increase of the non-sworn, but the actual requested budget amount is going to be slightly lower than what it was in last fiscal year, correct? So now we'll go to the salaries of the sworn, which again, it's slightly lower. Our request this year is slightly lower than last year. And then some corrections or changes that I would like to make there is, and I know we worked very hard to create a lieutenant rank, and we did that fiscal year before last. We did that. We had a very laborious process that we started. We changed a lot of policies, created the rank, and gave the lieutenant responsibilities for that position. We had two other individuals, sworn individuals that also uh participated in the process so we had three uh three applicants for that position three um three contestants for that lieutenant spot one rose to the top he got promoted and then suddenly uh 25 years and you know i know policing is it's getting a little difficult he said i'm i don't really want to do this anymore he wanted to retire and it's just fine So in February, the lieutenant retired. And this caused us to say, hey, you know, let's check out this rank to see if it was really rising to the level of optimization that we expected from it. And, you know, we said, hey, after myself and the major and a couple of people close to the top of the ranks, we looked at it and said, hey, you know, some of the tasks and duties associated with that lieutenant rank could easily be absorbed by the two sergeants below that we're already kind of doing a lot of those things and these are extra responsibilities including oversight of that records information coordinator that I spoke about it so it's a lot of a lot of obligated responsibility for those supervisors so we said hey you know let's take Let's take that lieutenant rank, which was 8% higher in grade than the sergeant's rank, and let's split it in half. Let's do 4% and promote those other two sergeants to D sergeant and a first sergeant. So that's what we'd like to do there. And I think, again, we kind of did a pilot on that. We gave them the duties and obligations that the lieutenant had, and these sergeants are veterans. They're 24, 25 years. They're very passionate and dedicated, and they did a great job in the competition for the lieutenant rank, and we thought it would only be fair to give them, you know, split it and let them have the opportunity let them have what the lieutenant rank was, and just call it D Sergeant and First Sergeant.

So, Chief, are you eliminating the lieutenant position? Yes, sir. We're going to eliminate that position. Staff-wise, that's one down. Yes, sir. Okay.

Well, no. So, no. That position will be recycled going back. We want to get people back on the road, back on the street. So we'll go to a patrol officer. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. said there's cost savings i think it's really just a wash i don't think there's any true cost savings but i will say this um mr kranz and i we we uh worked on that process it was it's a lot of work to do that it's going to be some time saving for us and probably some cost savings there too but with that any questions

I may have missed it the the sections that are struck about the additional two officers Yes, sir.

I would really would have loved to have had those but I understand They were eaten by the cost increase in health insurance Okay, so

So are we at a net neutral then in terms of staff members? 33.

Oh, let me go back to this a little bit. I almost forgot. So Mr. Krantz, thank you very much, and Lisa, we spoke about another kind of a unique situation that maybe you want to you know it's in the thought is in our mind but maybe something for you to think about and brainstorm with us but we've had some challenges I'm not going to say we didn't have some challenges over the past year with with staffing unexpected challenges and Mike did a great great job with this but he did like an assessment maybe an opportunity to to try to have some people sitting on the sideline or waiting in case we have some some future vacancy unexpected vacancies so I'll go through this report it's a request for authority to hire above authorized strength So currently, we're authorized for 33 sworn officers, and our current staffing is 30 active sworn officers. We just hired, and he's part of this total, we just hired a lateral from the town of Aberdeen, a 25-year-plus sergeant. He wanted to come here. It's going to be a great addition. We have one officer in the police academy, which is six months. we have one awaiting an academy she's going to be assigned to dispatcher parking enforcement and then we again i just kind of intimated that we have another lateral that we could be getting here soon but To get those people in the sworn position and you know This is all you know, the standards and certifications that we need through the Maryland Police Correctional Training Center it takes a Minimum of six months sometimes and if it's a new officer up to almost a year so while technically, you know, it looks like we're we're down three and uh really it's it's going to be kind of lower and to add on within the last couple months and we were doing okay with that we were filling the spots everything was working fine but unexpectedly we had four officers just i don't just out of the blue with illnesses and injuries and things like that and they're all modified duty And if they're on a modified or restricted medical duty for 30 days or more, we have to medically suspend them, take their guns and everything else. So you think that's it, right? So you know we're heavy on military personnel. We like the discipline. So we had two officers in the Marine Corps that were scheduled for active duty deployment. So we lost two more. So in theory, we look okay with 33. We're down to 30. But in reality, our effective staffing, because of those unanticipated challenges, we're down to 24 deployable officers, 27% below authorized strength right now.

Excuse me. I forget. When are they being deployed?

Well, I can't really. I don't really want to put that out. Oh, okay. Okay, that's fine. Sometime around this month, yeah. So we're kind of hurting right now. It's not because people are leaving the department or anything like that. It's just some of those things that happen. When they happen in larger agencies, and you know this, ma'am, the issue can be resolved. There's a lot of other people that can fill in for those vacancies temporarily, but we just don't have them. Other potential risks are we have four officers who currently have 25 years or more and could retire with a full pension, like they could do it tomorrow. And three additional officers will reach 25 years of service within the next 36 months. So, again, we've kind of went over the hiring and training timelines. New recruit, 12 to 18 months before independently working patrol. Lateral hire, six months before road ready. And operational concerns. difficulty meeting patrol staffing levels we've got some morale issues i've got to give my my troops a lot of credit they've risen to the challenge they've been working the overtime a lot of times they don't want to they're you know they'll find that they'll see that there's a vacancy in the next shift and then they got to stay over and the next shift has to come in four hours early but we we need to keep at least three three officers on the street uh that's our minimum uh staffing levels what we'd like to do in the future because late shift has been so busy and it's going to get busier again we'd like to make we'd like to bump that up to four for the evening shift between like 3 and 11 just to help with that

3 to 11 and not like the bar hours so 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. okay because I would I would have thought with the weather getting warmer weekends bars you might need them there instead so one of the one of the great things we have in the town here is we have a downtown bar patrol

that we have staffing between 11 and 2 30 on Fridays and Saturdays we have two two positions two slots for that and typically they're filled typically they're filled because again it's been getting busier and I understand the problems that being under staffed presents for morale because then if you're not interested in working overtime because you have

You know you found me a thing to do or you just want to go home and do whatever you want to do But there's overtime and it needs to be covered. It's It's after a while. Sometimes people just aren't interested in the money. They want to go home and do something else It definitely can create some burnout.

I've seen it. I'm sure you've seen it too, you know Did you have a question, Kristen? Oh, okay.

So, Chief, with basically when we lose the two for deployment, we'll be down to 24. Can we maintain three?

We're doing it. We're doing it? Yep. So some of the things that we're doing, innovative little things, and this helps with overtime, the overtime category, we'll look ahead and we'll change shifts. So if there are those instances where there's four people working or, let's say, Let's say the SRO school's off. We'll move the SRO from that day. It's not nice with them, but we'll modify their shift to make them to plug those holes. We do little things like that to also help save overtime. And sergeants are working. I mean, we're getting the sergeants to work patrol just like the officers do. command we've myself and you know my major and our other administrative sergeant administrative sergeant has been working a lot and that's and that's one of the things that I looked at to say hey you know what this guy's really putting out he's really he's really contributing so that kind of helped him on the promotion side yeah any idea when maybe the medical Some of them not too long but one of them broke his foot I mean there's some things he's gonna be out for a while some some medical problems where it might be extended for some of those people If you said the SROs like in the summer they go back on patrol Yes when we need them back on patrol we get them back there and oh I forgot to tell you that two of our newer officers and again I'm not you know not disparaging them but they just came in one day and said hey we're kind of done with this policing is just not the it's not the shining star that it used to be it uh it is what it is um and another thing that i got a little bit of concern about and again you all are very supportive but some of the police agencies some of our local police agencies usually we're at the top on salary um habit of grace just kind of jumped ahead of us which good for them great for them but i've got to be a little concerned about people wanting to jump ship and go to other agencies so but right now we're good I don't see any I don't see any indications of that none of that has happened since I've been here and I think that says a lot for our community they're very supportive of the police and I think we're fairly safe here and the cops like they like the environment so I haven't seen it yet but when you start to see other policing agencies and habit of grace is a pretty place I gotta say it's nice up there but I don't want to give anybody a hint but not as nice as but I'm not going I'm not boring So with that, what Mike has proposed is to be able to hire above and beyond the 33 sworn officer authorized strength and have some sitting in the sidelines. know if we lose some we're not going to replace those positions but to have them sitting in the sidelines and again i know ma'am you're familiar that some of the larger agencies they have an expectation a vacancy rate that they know that they're going to keep but for smaller agencies like us it's difficult and when we will set together and try to justify it you know i think lisa brought up maybe a letter of intent that the officers that are close to retiring we we kind of know when they're leaving and none of those are soon but within a year or two maybe we could get a letter of intent to say hey I'm leaving now and what I've always seen because there's always been a few vacancies here we've we've never seemed to exceed the budget line item for what what's allotted in that salary in that salary category because we're there's always a vacancy there so no but a lot of the times you make up for it in overtime

yes so you know there's savings and salaries right when you have vacancies whatnot but then you see it in overtime because you have to work overtime so they're there it's not a one-for-one but it's pretty doggone close

I always thought that was sort of problematic because I mean sometimes people want overtime but then other times you're having a hard time getting people to volunteer for overtime because they get burnt they get tired of work and they have other demands on their time that they need to take care of so I never there are some agencies that run with like huge overtime budgets and I just don't get why they don't hire more people although that can be difficult as well right especially now with recruiting you don't want overtime to be the norm

no you don't want a lot of overtime to be the norm i mean you want to be there for people that are you know interested in working some overtime but it's it's not good to have it be the norm they need time off and it sets all flags with media and all that you just don't want to do that if you don't have to but chief if i could just insert yeah a little bit i was going to ask you if you had anything to add thank you there's no there's no intention in this idea to exceed the maximum staffing of 33. in fact we might

never exceed the maximum staffing of 33 if we continue to have unexpected turnover which what chief was saying typically does happen there's always seems to be a vacancy and we always seem to be hiring I don't want to talk too much about it because I don't want to jinx it you know but the the thought process is if we we don't really want to take our foot off the gas in terms of recruiting because it takes that 12 to 18 months to get somebody up to speed a recruit you know in six months for a lateral and it's typically difficult to find the laterals and easier to find the recruits but then getting the recruit to stay you know is the next most important thing So we're just struggling with how to put it into the budget. Lisa had some excellent ideas which I'll allow her to potentially suggest. The chief had an excellent idea about other larger agencies have a vacancy rate or a vacancy ratio. So how do we do it without inserting money into the budget now? Would it be a, if we actually have retention, and then we're at that 33 number, and we don't wanna take our foot off the gas in terms of recruiting, because we anticipate there's probably gonna be another retirement next year, there's probably gonna be some unexpected turnover this year, how can we then hire that extra recruit and keep them going through the academy and budget for it? Can we do it mid-year, can you do it do you have to do it now at the beginning of the fiscal year so really literally the word you use in terms of brainstorm is really where we're at but we the goal is not to take our foot off the recruiting because talking to Dave Dave Hughes our major and chief they've had some real success in finding some really good candidates and we want to keep going in that direction

I'm 100% on board with not taking our foot off the gas on recruitment because we always have to be ready there's just always somebody that is going to leave for whatever reason if you're at retirement age you may not plan to retire and then something may come along that you you're like this is the opportunity I can't let it go by I'm gonna retire and take this other thing you can you you have to plan for it because you can't anticipate it really so you just have to you know figure that's gonna happen

And just kind of being new on the what is the 33 number come from is that That's just how it's progressed over the years Authorized number of sworn officers according to the fiscal year budget.

Okay when I first got here. I think it was at 31 31 we've and we've done some creative work you know we've we've moved some people that were administrative before employees from there were sworn in administrative positions and we've you know with the help of the commissioners we put them back on the street so the quartermaster is now a civilian position and that position is now a uniformed officer on the street and that's a trend that I see in other departments as well to take those positions that you can make non-sworn and

then return those people to, you know, law enforcement duties in patrol because they're more expensive people. That's where we need them. And they have to be credentialed. And so to put somebody like that in a position that doesn't need all those credentials, you know, in some ways doesn't make sense. So a lot of departments are where they used to have sworn officers and those kinds of positions are now moving them back out to the street and making those administrative civilian positions. And that's what the chief has done. problem really with Bel Air is that it's such a small department when you have the usual couple of you know somebody's hurt somebody's deployed and somebody else is retiring it blows a much larger hole in their manpower than it does in a department that's got like 3,000 you know authorized strength So you have to, you know, figure it out. And you've done a great job at figuring it out. Thank you, ma'am. But I am respectful of the fact that the guys get tired and don't want to do any more overtime. They want to go home and mow the lawn or play with their kids or, you know, do whatever.

I come in in the morning and someone will be like, hey, I'm working again, you know, all night. And I'm like, I'm sorry, you know.

Chief, a couple more questions. When you said if you overhire, you'd have them ready on the sideline, what do you mean by that?

maybe not maybe maybe that's the wrong term to use but they'll be sitting there to take you know if we need them if we have the vacancies they have gaps they'll already be trained up and ready to go and also you know you but I mean I'll be on the payroll right they'll be on the payroll just be a regular cop right so figuratively on the side I mean if we had line so if let's say one of the let's say one of the retirees heads out that position is not going to be replaced again

so that's kind of you know that it's not we're not going to go how do i phrase that michael um the the concept would be to hire 34 a 34th officer if we ever get to that point the concept would be to hire a 35th officer But the goal would not to retain the 34th or 35th officer. It would be to, when one of the more senior people retire, to drop back down. And then not hire another after that. You just let attrition take its course. Right, I mean that's- So the struggle is how do we budget for it? I mean doing it is not a problem. And even if the board would give the police department the authorization to hire over 33, verbally even, putting that extra 100 grand, I guess, in the budget just for one more person, which includes salary and benefits and uniforms and all those other things, Does it, budgeting for it now, and then it just, that 100 grand just sitting there and going unused because we can never get above 29, you know, could be the issue. So it's, maybe this is just a conversation that may never take place, but I guess we're kind of, we're breaching the topic because we want to have the reassurance that we can do what I said a moment ago, is continue to recruit. And if we don't experience any turnover, we might end up over 33, and then it does become a budgetary issue because it might not have been budgeted, during your vote in the upcoming FY27 election in the end of May. So then it would have to be adjusted because suddenly you have an officer on and so and so decided not to retire. Even if they got a letter of intent, maybe they withdrew it. So you certainly wouldn't require a senior officer to retire if they decided to change their mind, you'd thank them for staying. But at the same time, how do you budget for it in such a significantly tight budget? The easy solution is what Chief Moore said at the beginning. You adopt an extra 100 grand vacancy rate and that covers it for that one officer.

know but that's not an easy thing to do when we don't have 100 grand to budget yeah yeah no that's that's part of the problem is and that's why we couldn't we had to cut those two additional officers is we don't have the money um to be able to do that so i think it's something that um the chief michael and i um and my successor just has to keep at the forefront um and as we progress to the point where okay now we're fully staffed yes now what now it it is it's a it's an issue right um because i mean i it's it's not that the money's it's not that it's gonna be it's it would happen outside the budget because I mean that's not a big deal we just do a budget amendment but you have to have the money to be able to do it that's that's the problem you have to have the money to be able to do it And so when Michael and I talked about it this week, I said, you know, I'm extremely uncomfortable with it right now without having any type of – it's all hearsay right now with the officers. I mean, we have one who's a potential later this fall. but it's just talk. He sounds pretty definite, but we also had an officer who's been talking that same talk for over a year. So from my perspective, until we get that letter from them, I'm not really comfortable with it. I totally understand where Chuck's coming from in all this, and I sympathize, and I want to be able to do whatever I can from a financial aspect to help him. But you also can't put the cart before the horse either. I mean, you can't hire someone, if you don't have the money, to pay them just waiting for an officer who says they're going to retire to retire. Because what if it doesn't happen for a year? Now you've got $100,000. I'm just making that number up because we've been talking about that. That's in the budget that you've spent. I don't have any money for it.

Is that the loaded cost for an entry level?

No, we're just, again, we just, somebody said $100,000, so.

Ballpark for an entry level?

I mean, it's, once you get benefits added to that, and uniforms, and gun, and.

Right. Because the starting salary is a little over $60,000. Right, and then all the benefits. And then the benefits and the equipment and everything. Correct. We call it a loaded salary. All the stuff. That would be about $100,000.

Do we have any kind of like I mean this is probably a ridiculous question but I know when I retired from the school system that if you put in by December you know with the school year if you put in by December then you got a $500 bonus. You said that you were going to retire and you put it in writing and you put your paperwork in. I mean I know we're small but I mean do we have anything like that that no?

We actually want our people to stay.

So it's obviously not something that's going to get solved this evening, but I think more we're bringing it to your attention that it's on our radar, and we're looking at it, and Michael and I want to be able to support the chief in handling this. But let's get, in my opinion, let's get closer to that point of being fully staffed first. And then it'll be like, okay, do we want to try to hire somebody else? Or how close is maybe that retirement of the person who's been talking about it? You know, you just have to re-look at everything, re-evaluate everything at that point in time.

we're way early we got to get the full staff first so we're at least yes our big operational challenge here is not so much 33 versus 35 it's getting to 33 in the first place we have some quality people in the pipeline and that's why I wanted to discuss it we are we are close so

I'm gonna be optimistic and think that this next group of candidates, recruits and laterals, are gonna stick and stay. And then we probably will have the retirement that we're anticipating. So that'll put us behind the eight ball again. But optimistically, it's prudent for us to plant the seed in your minds that this could come back to you, like Lisa says, in the upcoming months.

Because what concerns me is the 12 to 18 months to get them out of patrol on a new recruit So you're down. That's your problem. Yeah, that's you know, it is type of thing Yeah, I'd having somebody waiting in the house. I mean, I you know, what's like you said?

Let's wait till we get the full strength and then we'll address the issue and then you've all we've never had this problem But you always have a little bit of a concern that they don't make it through, you know, there's a problem with them, you know, and

And everybody wants to do everything in Bel Air, and I don't want to steal any of the Chief's thunder, but he probably was going to say this. The officers, and you were saying it yourself, Mayor Edding, that the officers do tire of all the extra duties. Thank you, Mike. The events are phenomenal. They do. It gives our town an identity. you know, the derby, the barbecue bass, the Independence Day, the Fourth of July, all the wonderful things, the wine fest, all the things that happen in the town of Ballard make our town special. But they do happen on the backs of our public works employees as well as our public officers. And the worst case scenario for any supervisor is to deny someone's vacation you know and that's and it's come close and it has happened in the past so we really don't want to do it's happened and we want to be yeah it's happened it's probably happened in the police department more than anywhere else you know and that's uh that's the most that's the most damaging to morale than anything else

So they will actually lock down the days. There's probably been officers here that haven't celebrated a 4th of July in 25, 26 years. Because when we have like a 4th of July event or a Main Street closure, we call that an all hands on deck. Everybody that's available has to work.

I mean it's they're used to it and actually the morale's pretty high but you know some of them That is all pretty common in police work I know some officers that worked New Year's Eve's forever or also other jurisdictions also cancel all leave for 4th of July and St. Patrick's Day has become a big event too everywhere so I get wanting to have it off but it is part of the job unfortunately I think really I mean I see what you're saying about this alternate way but unfortunately the budget problems caused by the huge increase in health insurance premiums just having some extra officers would also be a help because they'd be permanently on the books and they even have a little more breathing room so it's unfortunate Are we still at the 20% increase from our premiums?

That was a hit, wasn't it? Okay, any other? I know that was long. So I guess we'll go to the page 139, overtime pay, 0105. Might as well just hit that while we've already discussed it. But, again, we did have a – Our amount budget is $286,650, and actually we went over about 16% from last year's budget. We were supposed to be right at $281,000, and currently we're up to $324,000. So that's just an indication of the hit that we're taking right now with these vacancies and people on restricted duty, etc., so we're hoping that that this will be resolved with the influx of more personnel and part of the overtime ish impact on overtime was again I've kind of alluded to the rise in retail theft in the area We spent 120 hours on retail theft initiatives. It's around $8,600. And actually that worked quite well. And, you know, again, I want us to be the safest city in Maryland. And when you have a bunch of Part 1 crimes and shoplifting theft and shopliftings are included in that, we've got to knock those down. So I did an analysis recently of the – time frame current time frame to last year's time frame and actually we're down uh we were at 96 last year and 96 this year and 129 last year so that's a good sign we're impacting that that's a significant decrease and again but that's it takes over time it takes some work it takes people out there being vigilant to do that any questions on that

For some of the overtime, the events are either reimbursed or a certain percentage.

Is that just agreements that the town has with these different entities that we determine whether or not- Yes, the first county oriented or non-profit town that we sponsor organizations. The first $300 are free. I don't know if you're familiar with that. But I'll go over some of that on the next one down if you're okay.

Chief, before we leave over time, so that we budgeted $281,000 this fiscal year.

last fiscal year well yeah the one that we're currently in i mean yes correct yes um and we're already at 305 and that number is going to continue to rise yeah okay yes but you have salary savings to pay for it right yeah so it's what i mentioned earlier with you see elevated overtime but savings in the in the salaries to compensate right for that yep so then when you Budget like we are today you go back to the normal level because salaries are normal overtimes normal You have to kind of put out of your mind the abnormal years, which we've had a lot of abnormal years, right?

And you don't want to be lopsided there. You want to stay with what's in the books, you know, I don't like that either Good Let's go down to the next one zero one zero six overtime courts and So, let's see, we went over on that also from this current fiscal year when we took a look at it. One of the things that, and actually Lisa noticed this, that we were seeing was that our officers were being placed on call status a lot. And we had some consultation with Allison, the state's attorney's office, always very friendly, always willing to help. And she's kind of worked on some things over there, including that if the state's attorney doesn't call before the state's attorney assigned the case, doesn't call before 11 o'clock, then they're off on call. so usually they'll get a call and we've noticed some results so the last several months it's declining considerably and the average for the year is around $2,800 a month and since April that's been reduced to $1,900 so we're seeing some good results with that she's helped us out a lot with that and I appreciate it so I just wanted to bring that to your attention because it was above what was allotted in that account so any questions so next one down overtime special events zero one zero seven um and this is consistent with what it was last year but um this is kind of deceiving a little bit because you know it says that you know the town's spending 61 200. I'm sure you're familiar but I just want the citizens to see that we're reimbursed a lot of this uh this money here So, for instance, some of the in kind in kind assistance that we get from the Fourth of July and I got to extend kudos to the sheriff's office, our fire police personnel, our auxiliary. We get help from a lot of people, including having like drone overwatch, a lot of security. we've got to have a dpw our dpw personnel they're out there too and anymore we you know the security threats that are out there we just can't have something happen and we have to have make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed so we have all of our personnel there and i would say probably another 30 to 40 personnel from other allied agencies that are assisting us in keeping the keeping the roadways safe blocking the roads we use the dump trucks to do that we expend a lot of resources there but we get a lot back from the community too so that's 4th of July for the st. Paddy's Day you'll see that costs are 6300 well we get about half of that back because we uh we have a contract with loonies they actually uh hire two of our officers that are there we might even increase that a little bit for the next time next go around but a lot of that is reimbursed by our officers and by the loonies which is the establishment that has uh you know they have a lot of business on st patty's day probably the most you know One of the things that triggered that was a few years back, you know, we're like some of these citizens in town, they don't want to, they're not partiers. And why are our taxpayers paying for all of these officers to stand outside their location? So we have a trigger. So when we get the permits, application for permits in, and we go from the previous year, if there was a lot of things happening and we didn't have officers, we're going to say on that permit, guess what? You got a lot going on there. A lot of our officers had obligated time at that location. Now it's your turn to pay. And you know what? We have quarterly tavern meetings. We really don't get any kickback. And I think they actually appreciate when we're there. So I think that's it for that one. Any questions? Oh, Explorers Grant. One more thing. Explorers Grant. uh it says costs are 11 000 typically we get around 4 000 from the community policing grant through go cap who really like our explorer program and really appreciate what we do with the the kids in the community and the fact that i mean a lot of these kids they go to be public servants either soldiers ems fire you know police we have several of them here that were former bel air police explorers so it's a good incubator any questions on that Gavin did you have questions on that one I knew you had some you good and ma'am if you go to the next page you'll see I'm not going to go through it but downtown patrol 0111 line item 0111 that has an explanation what the downtown patrol is I did see that and it does have the hours there that you yes ma'am which coincides with the bar hours Travel and training. I'm going to touch on that a little bit. Really, there's nothing. It looks like a lot, but our logistics certification person, the person that watches this training and goes through every year and does an evaluation of what's needed, he's really on point and he's fiscally responsible. So really, there's nothing that's extravagant. Now, what I will say is that... what's hurting us here is uh you know we've got to put two officers through an academy which is eight thousand dollars it's four thousand dollars a piece uh so that's a big expense and then we have uh the good old police accountability act which requires officers to get a mental health assessment every two years That cost us $6,200. That's an unfunded mandate. And what we're going to try to do, actually, and I think we've done it in the past, there's a police accountability community transparency called PAC grant. We're going to try to get some reimbursement for that $6,200 through that grant. So, but really the overall cost, the budgeted amount is about the same. It's about a wash from what it was last year. And again, a lot of the expenses were from academies.

Any questions?

So let's go to page 145, mobile data services. You'll see that the amount there is $33,120. Last year it was $23,000, and that is due to the addition of the Verkada artificial intelligent cameras to this line item and the need to have a wireless connection there. It's called a cellular gateway for 15 of those public safety surveillance cameras that are being installed. So that created an increase there of around 7,200 for the gateways. And by the way, thank you for the trailer. That's going to be a nice addition to the network. We're getting that constructed now. It's like having a cyber cop on the street, you know. Had some great results with it.

Chief, what was the cut for 3800? What was that cut out? The eight cellular gateway?

Pardon me? I'm sorry, sir.

In that mobile data service, you cut out eight cellular gateway wireless connections. What was that? Why were the eight cut out?

That's due to- What does that reduce? that's due to the next phase of the Verkada system being eliminated from the budget this go-around all right sir but I do have to say and there could be a light at the end of the tunnel we applied for the arts and entertainment grant that could mean I'm hopeful I think we're hopeful on that one spent a lot of work on it we could end up getting four cameras that that have to be installed in arts and entertainment the business district basically yeah We could have four additional in there. Thanks for Stephanie's help, and Lisa, you guys helped with that. So let's go down to the next one, gasoline, 0430. everybody's always worried about the gas prices I think I think that we we benefit incredibly from this consortium and partnership that we have with Hartford County we looks like you know the average gallon of gasoline right now is around three dollar over three dollars we're benefiting from 2.61 per gallon

It was 419 at the Wawa today.

It really shot up so this is a huge advantage and it's keeping it down now they run out of I think they usually get around two million two million gallons of fuel but if they run out of that fuel then we're gonna be looking at a rise in the price they have something they call floating and all this other stuff I used to kind of understand it but I think we're good right now so all right this is this is the complicated one here need Lisa's help on this problem here I think I got it but this let's go to page 146 and the body cameras and tasers So we started our body camera program in 2019, and we've had to renew a couple times, and this will be the third renewal that we want to do with our body camera agreement with Axon. And I wish I had stock in Axon, I tell you, because the prices rise. you know every time you got to renew this thing but um during the first one i think it was around a hundred thousand dollars uh it was over five year installment and the overall cost was about a hundred thousand the next one went to 185 and this newest one is going to go up to i think it's like 400 000 i'll have to look it up but at any rate it wasn't due to expire yet but lisa and i got together and we're like you know what every time we have to renew this thing it goes up a lot So we have a very good representative in Axon, and he said, you know, you can renew it now and benefit from cost savings by renewing it early. I think we had two years left on it. So we decided to start the renewal process, which is going to bring the price up some, you know, because we are initially – because it was still open. Our old contract, we were at $48,465, but it's going to jump up to $77,121 because of our efforts to renew and try to save some money at the front end. Another problem we have is that we actually have three other open contracts. Do you need to take a break or something? You good? We had three other open contracts, and we have to look and see when these things, when the invoices are due, we have to go through and make sure we're getting charged the right amount of prices. It was a lot of work watching all these other contracts, so what we wanted to do is consolidate those other open contracts into this one. So you'll see there where we initially, we had one open for 26 extra cameras. So the officers have an extra camera. And this was related to the Hughes homicide that we had with the infant. Fortunately a deputy rolled up on the scene off duty and he had an off He had a second camera on and he's able to capture that had that been one of our officers been off duty without a camera We wouldn't have been able to capture that because the cameras at the time weren't technologically advanced enough To be able to have you know We would we wouldn't have had it because they have to download it takes time to download it takes time to charge but since then the they've increased, they've become more advanced and the officers can actually get more memory out of the camera and they get more charge time. So basically, we only need one. And if we were to have need needed the other 26 cameras, you could have put on another $150,000 on that. So we're trying to save some money there. So they're going to be gone. And the remaining amount of time for that contract is going to be absorbed into this new one for some cost savings. And then lastly, the other contract we had, we got these modules through a grant, through the PAC grant. They're going to be absorbed inside, those accessory packages are going to be absorbed inside the new contract. And our representative actually added on something called Transcribe. this will really increase the efficiency of our officers to be able to go through if they know that they said something during the conversation they don't have to they don't have to go through the whole they don't have to go through all of the footage they can they can do a search for it and find it and they can even use it for the reports so it'll be a nice advancement for us any questions on that did I get it all Lisa yeah good Next page, 147-0506, firearms supplies. The requested budget amount is $19,000. This year it was $16,000 last year, several thousand higher. We have some very good firearms instructors and experts in the field there, and what they try to do is they have some ammunition sitting on the side, because again um you know they're concerned about all these extra hirings and we get we've got to run thousands of rounds uh through a new employee to try to get them you know adequately trained and also for this is for our regular allotment of ammunition that we have for certification it's for upkeep at the range we have to pay rent to aberdeen police department to use the range it's all those expenses involved in there One of the issues that we ran into a few years back around COVID, everybody was running out of ammunition. And they're always worried, very worried about not being able to get the ammunition if they need it. And we have some conflicts going on outside the country, which causes a drain on ammunition. So they try to get a little extra to have sitting in the back just in case it's needed. So that's why that's higher. Good. Questions? Uniforms. Uniforms at page 147. Line item 0512. So this is a little higher, and I'm sure you probably can figure that out. We've gotta hire two new officers, and to completely outfit an officer with duty gear, uniforms, and everything, it's 7,500 a piece. It's very expensive. So that's a big reason for the rise in cost on that one. Otherwise, it would have been around the same. Steve, the quartermaster, he's the same as the certification officer. He's trying to work out and try to get cheaper prices when he can. I think he's going to talk to you about that or Marty soon because I think we can get it lower than what the source well price is. we're going by that source well price, and he's like, look, I can go lower than this on something, so I don't know how that would work procurement-wise. So he's going to be talking to Marty about that. Yes, ma'am. Any questions? um the vest the go to go to 0515 there's an increase there because more officers have to get vest uh you know and we rely on um we'll we'll alternate uh the grant sources for this there's uh the go cap governor's office that we one year will do that and they actually they will help fund some of the some of the outer vest carriers that we have but when you go through the bulletproof vest partnership program it's federal the bvp they will not fund the outer vest carriers so that adds some cost there to that and the price of the vest went up about four hundred dollars they're now fourteen hundred thirty dollars a piece they were a thousand so patrol vehicle accessories 0570 that's uh that's going to be lower than last year simply due to the fact that we had one extra car that we purchased because of the extra officer and we like to have a pool car or two in case one goes down which hasn't happened in a while knock on wood but um it has happened or you know god forbid a crash or something like that so we like to have and usually the pool cars that we have they're the ones that uh high mileage that kind of thing and um you know we have them sitting on the side just waiting so uh three packages rather than four this year and each pack each accessory pass package is 25 000 apiece vehicle maintenance 0601 we're always right on the on the bubble with that and speaking with matt and the fleet the fleet manager sergeant farrell that's not due to that's not due to the maintenance or that's not due to vehicle issues equipment issues like transmissions going out or engines apparently the prices have gone up considerably on everything breaks oil it's like doubled from what it was a couple years ago probably just like the grocery store stuff that we see went to the grocery store yesterday and got two things three or four things it was 50 bucks i'm like this is just crazy now the way things are any questions Lastly, now I've got a couple more things here, Vehicles Capital. Page 151, Verkata. This is underneath 0805. There's a couple pages of that. Again, we've kind of touched on the Verkata, the value that the Verkata command or the Verkata system has given us in the town of Bel Air as far as keeping us safer. One of the things that John Ganofsky, who is one of the primary individuals responsible for keeping up with the Verkata stuff, and I've got to extend some thanks and appreciation to him and some others here for helping me out with that because it's just hard to keep up with it. But one of the things that he was finding is that we have the legacy surveillance systems in town, the Bosch systems. with this command and we were actually enabled in piloting this with infinity and for kata they said hey try this out see what you think of it so basically what this command connector will do it will it will integrate with our older cameras, and it will actually give them some of the features, not all of them, some of the AI features that the Verkada has. So this command connector will enable us to pull in 50 of our Bosch cameras into that system and look at it as like a dashboard, along with our Verkada cameras. And that's what that purchase is about for $50,000. Any questions there?

Chief just a yes sir yeah there's two two paragraphs after the after the paragraph the top that was striked out you have a 50k in paren and then a 50k in the second paragraph uh so that was brackets so what really should have happened is the first sentence there should have been scratched out that was the 105 000 that we were requesting for the next phase of the ricotta cameras i saw that too is that does that answer your question no i'm not sure i

I can take it.

There's two 50Ks on those paragraphs. One's in brackets and one's not. So I'm like, what is that?

The one bulleted item for the Verkada Command, that's a $50,000 purchase. The second bullet, the requested budget was $155,000. $50,000 from the Command Connect and $105,000 for the second phase of Verkada. That was because Verkada's second phase was cut. It went from $155,000 to $50,000.

It's just the same item.

It's the same item. It's just showing you the change.

I don't think it was two different items.

It went from 105 plus 50 equals 155 to zero plus 50 equals 50.

Correct. So lastly from the budget perspective is We requested last page 152 0806 we requested this year this next fiscal year 150,000 this current fiscal last fiscal year we requested 220 because again we had we requested for cars rather than 3 be replaced. we and we're very we try to be pretty strict we try to replace them within five to ten years um if they start getting a hundred thousand miles we try to get rid of them too uh you know even though the mileage might be low these officers they now they have to keep the cars running because of the cad system they can't shut them down because it would take five minutes to get it back online they were shut it off so there's there's a lot of engine wear on some of these cars because they sit and idle a lot um there we have a security system that you know you can't jump in and take it you know you there's things that we can do to lock the cars down so um we're just not leaving cars sitting around running that is so comforting to hear yes it is really i know yeah i used to worry at first when i first got here they're like hey chief you can't you can't take the car I came from an agency where my car, my command car had 250,000 miles on it, so I wasn't used to that. Any questions?

So 150K for three, and does the 50K, does that include kidding them completely?

just what's described well so some there's some they do up fit them some but then we rely on the rest of the up fitting from the accessory package line item on page 149 yeah it's a zero five seventy yes sir Any questions?

So the the strikethroughs on 150 and 151, were those also casualties of the hole in our budget? Okay. And now those are more and correct me if I'm wrong, those improvements with the camera system, they are more capital in nature.

Like the phase two of the system, yes.

So was there a debate about whether or not we pull from the capital reserve to fund that project?

It was not because we felt like we were already pulling enough from the capital reserve at that point. I had already told Chuck that the speed traffic trailer would probably be purchased out of this fiscal year. And the drone was already kind of on the fence.

That was an extra toy, I know.

But we, you know, when we met with the chief to talk about his budget, you know, and said that phase two may have to wait another year, I mean – you were fine with with that so it is something that can go back in the budget if you all want to pay capital for it um town administrator myself just felt that we were at our comfort level with capital at that point how much are we uh draining the capital reserve this year do you it's over nine hundred thousand dollars okay well that's a pretty big number it is i mean you've got some extra money because of the technology budget with doing the um the items the trenching and the fiber because of what happened up the street on pennsylvania you don't normally have that so if that wouldn't have been there probably could have done phase two out of the capital reserve yeah

Yeah, I certainly understand, you know, we don't have the money to cash flow new officers. I was just thinking that these being more capital in nature, but I understand. And, you know, when you get a broader picture of, you know, what is the bottom line for the capital reserve going to look like? And surely that it's going to be a decrease as opposed to an increase. We understand that. Right. So that is a pretty decent chunk.

Right. We also knew, you know, that the capital reserve was going to take a hit with the condo trash project and that the capital reserve may take a hit from a project that we're looking at right now of a property. You all are aware of what I'm talking about. So we were just being cautious. That's all.

and this and it might be a blessing in disguise a little bit let's cross our fingers with this grant you know we can we can you know reduce the size of the project that happens so I think that's all I have the red lights you anybody had I'm sorry has the speed trailer already been purchased or it's going to be purchased before the end of this fiscal year or we just put it all for now

Nothing's been purchased that we were trying that could potentially get moved from 27 to 26. Until I start to work on a budget amendment for 26, which I'll start I'm going to give myself a week to the audit all the federal and state reports were due today so give myself a little bit of a break and then I'll start working on that budget amendment so I'll have an answer for you but nothing has been purchased or is even in the works yet I've told the departments just it's potential let's see.

And Chief will we retire the existing trailer or will we have two running?

we might try to get that to get it fixed up I'm gonna try to do some work on that so but it mean it definitely needs something because it's it's hurting isn't it I remember it with you put it out and then it didn't collect the data well that's that's something different but this new one I think we'll be able to collect data also all right any further questions for the chief

thank you all an ugly budget year chief sorry I'm gonna miss miss Moody too she's been my buddy all right so any discussion by us on budget issues we have our yep we need to move to red light which is on page 124 the chief said he was done I thought we were done sorry about that

We are under a

a piggyback contract through the Howard County Consortium here. They had rebid the contract in fiscal year 24. ATS was again selected as the contractor, and they provide the camera and the processing services. So the original contract was for one period and then six renewals. It is a, as you can see there in the first bullet, it's a per camera charge of a about $4,100. There is a CPI increase in this contract, which has never been in any previous contracts. So there is a slight increase for a portion of the fiscal year. And then the second cost is the facility cost at Howard County. And that again has a slight CPI increase so those two charges together is what Equates to the budget. So what we pay ATS is not based on a per ticket. It used to be Years ago, but no longer it is a flat fee now as you as as the consortium or its members as Jurisdictions add lights Our cost is going to go down a little bit because the costs are spread over more red lights. But then if they drop some lights, then our costs go up. So just this fiscal year in a two month period, our costs went down and then they went back up. So it happens, it's just not, it's rare. It's been pretty stable over the years. So again, we're just budgeting with what we know today and not making any assumptions that we're gonna have new members or new cameras in other jurisdictions. We're not looking at any new cameras. here in town. So we have the four. I have those listed on that page. Any other questions on red lights?

Chief, are each one of those violations examined by an actual officer before we? Yes. Okay.

I know there had been something in the legislature to allow non-sworn officers to review those tickets. Do you remember if it was approved or not? Yes, it was. It was approved, but that's not what we do here.

No. Well, actually, we do have one technician that does do it. Yes.

Okay. So they're all each reviewed, but may or may not be reviewed by a sworn law enforcement officer. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

All right, so that's all the budget presentations for tonight. And I did hear back from Derek while we were meeting, and he sent his apologies. So I have got him rescheduled for next Thursday. So I passed out the updated outstanding list with just adding four and five to the list from the last meeting and adding some additional information on number two with done since that has been completed. Was there anything this evening that you all would like me to add that's budget related? I did want to just MENTION TO YOU ALL, WE'VE HAD THE FIRE COMPANY PRESENTATION THIS EVENING. YES, THEY WERE ASKING FOR AN ADDITIONAL $300,000 OVER THE $164,000 IN FISCAL YEAR 24. SO THAT BRINGS THEIR REQUEST UP THROUGH 2029 TO $464,000. good luck because it's just that's a lot of money it's going to take probably a tax rate increase in order to get to that level of contribution we are doing the best that we can with increasing their our contribution to them as much as we can we had in the original Budget that Eddie and I worked on we had another $30,000 increase in there and then of course health insurance Happened so we dialed it back. Everybody has to take a piece of the hurt So we dialed it back to a $20,000 increase. So We're yeah, you can see that on page 122 if you look at requested versus administrator request a recommended and You'll see that change. Yeah, you want to look at administrator recommended. And again, that's the reasoning for that is we just felt it wasn't fair to to cut the chief and not reduce what we had hoped we could contribute. So I knew I figured you all knew this, but I just wanted to state it because if we're looking at they're asking through 2029, if you all approve the two and a quarter of 2027 for two more years, that would be $120,000 increase in each one of those years.

And I think we came to understand certainly last budget year that that just wasn't gonna be feasible. I think last year we settled on somewhere in the ballpark of 100 to 150,000 up to 2029. And I think we're on track to hit that over the, I mean, who knows, who knows?

Maybe.

If things continue the way they're going, we'll get close to that. If you look at 100 to 150,000 over the 2024 number, that's either 264, which after this year we'll be 40 off from, or at the high end, we'd be 90 off from. You know, over the course of the next two fiscal years, maybe. Right. You know, maybe. I think that was sort of, that was a more realistic ballpark that we looked at last year. Yeah. And, you know, obviously it's unfortunate that we can't do more, but for all the reasons that we stated that we can't, you know, fully, or that we, you know, all the reasons that we just talked about for the police department, I'll put it that way, we obviously can't throw $100,000 a year. Yeah. I totally understand that, especially when you're dealing with operating revenue, because that then commits it for the next every fiscal year thereafter, and you tighten yourself and you run into problems. So I understand that.

I mean, I always say, you know, we have to take care of home first, right? the chief I mean we've talked about you know the the the issues with officers and vacancies and we had to cut two officers and we had he I mean he took a lot of cuts in his department so we need to try to take care of those first before we take care of outsiders and I don't mean that to be rude I'm just saying this is our home here and you always have to take care of home first and do what you can for everyone else but yeah so I again just wanted to mention that and the false alarm that is something that actually Eddie and Chuck I think and Michael and I had already been looking at through his request so you know that is something that had been on our radar and we will continue to to look at to see if that's feasible and the way that that could work if we were to be able to do it I would suggest that we, once we institute it, all of that money, less an administrative fee for us, we would give that, that would be part of the fire company contribution then. I mean, I don't have any problem with that, but, I want to make sure that we're covering our costs, so our personnel costs to manage the program and then our hard costs because my office would be billing that. So, you know, those costs as well. It wouldn't be a large chunk, but certainly that's something that we could do and we'll continue and we'll look at that to see if that's something that we could do.

Because depending on the number of false alarms, if it's a high number, that could be a decent chunk of change. Yes. I mean, if we want to do $100, if we want to do $250, I mean, after four false alarms, and you've got to set the rate, but after four overages, that's $1,000. So depending on the number, it could be significant.

yeah the other thing is sometimes people get a bill don't pay it so true so there can be additional cost you know if somebody doesn't for sure well and it would all you would only be you know just because we bill it doesn't mean we're going to collect it so it's only what we collect gets remitted to the fire company for sure um we have a pretty but if it's a fine i'm sorry if it's a fine then we put that on their taxes too if they don't pay it just like any other violation of a town code if there's a fine that's unpaid don't we put it on their tax bill if they own the property if they own the property a lot of a lot of your commercial areas rent okay but they don't own the property that's not our problem that's their problem i can't there's no tax bill for me to there's i can't put a lien on the owner's property when they don't own the property

No, you can't put a lien on the business's property because they don't own the property. You can put a lien on the property, can you not? The owner of the property.

But I can't put a lien on...

If business A... Go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead.

No, I'm saying if business A is operating on my property, I'm going to send the bill to who? Me or business A?

The real property tax bill comes to you as the owner of the property.

To me. And the fine would go to who?

The fine would go to the business who's renting, who's the tenant.

we had problems in the county collecting these some people would pay it I mean some entities would pay it but then we have a bunch of people who didn't pay it and then you have to sue them to get the money and it has to be worth that I mean we have that right now with the false alarms that we do charge and the majority of them I want to say are collectible

kudos to Amy in my office she's got some kind of knack for collections oh my gosh amazing but so majority of them are are paid but I can't put a lien on their property if they don't own the property but again there's something that you know we'll definitely look at

possibly they could you know but leaning the personal property is is tricky because it's not identifiable like a car with a VIN number or a home like as a you know residential address or a commercial address it's a piece of real property you can you know where it is when they're paying personal property taxes on I don't know desks and filing cabinets and stuff it's really it becomes very difficult yeah is what I found in my other life

And then you're getting Liz involved. So now you're paying attorney costs for how much of a false alarm that you're trying to collect. So you really have to weigh everything.

It's not worth it after an hour of work. No, it's not. Right. I know.

That's what I mean. Yeah. And, again, if it's money that we're not even going to keep, I'm just – Spending money that less and lesser if nothing if nothing's gonna go to them and then we're out the money So we don't want to go that directions Yeah So anything additional on the outstanding list Okay That's all we have for this evening In that case may I have a motion to adjourn so moved do I have a second I?

Second.

And all in favor? Aye. Unanimous. We are adjourned.