The good news is that the Police budget request is $6.27M for an increase of 1.09%.  The bad news is that the Town is legally only allowed to take it or leave it with no line by line veto allowed.  That also means that the submitted budget will stand unlike the other departments whose budgets will be scrutinized closely and chopped to get the overall total down to the 1.9% target.  But there’s more good news: the Business Services department is doing well and is not only self-sustaining but contributes to reserves used for Police Capital purchases, $2.9M expected in 2020.  Chief Paul Vandegraaf also spoke about his “pivot” to evidence based policing: that is, measuring results and directing effort… Read complete articlePolice Budget – 2020