No Layoffs for Police, But Probably No New Hires Either

Under Mayor James Barberio's proposed budget, there will not be any police layoffs, but no new officers will probably be hired.

At Monday's municipal budget session,the council reviewed Barberio's proposed $12.97 milllion total  budget for the police department.

Although officials hade, which would leave the department with 82 officers, Police Chief Michael Peckerman said it could be as few as four.

Barberio said in that case, one or two more officers could be hired, but only if the department is suffering a real shortage.

Peckerman said 16 is a "worst-case'' scenario, and the number of retirements depends largely on whether for public employees is passed. 

According to Peckerman, if 16 officers retire, the amount of services offered to residents would be dramatically curtailed.

"If we go down to near 80, we'd be stretched well beyond our limits," he said. "We'd be run like a busy urban police department. We'd mostly answer emergency calls only."

Detectives would also have to cut back on their cases, focusing mostly on assaults and violent crimes, he said.

Programs like D.A.R.E would be cut, along with community policing.

During the public portion of the meeting, resident Pat Petaccia asked if officers would be willing to accept pay freezes so additional staff might be added, but Barberio said he couldn't discuss that because he was in negotiations with the police union.

Peckermen said he also couldn't discuss the issue. According to the chief, salaries for police range from about $40,000 to his salary of $180,000. 

Council Vice President Michael dePierro had proposed cutting a line item that would have devoted $88,000 to buy two new police cars and to replace them with two new hires instead.

But his motion wasn't seconded by other council members.

Peckerman argued that if the department made such a swap, and held off on the cars, there would be no money in the budget to buy the cars next year if the state cap on property taxes remains at 2 percent.

"It would lower the baseline," he said.