SWAMPSCOTT — Police Chief Ruben Quesada met with the Finance Committee to discuss the department’s fiscal year 2024 budget and reflect on FY23 Monday evening.
The Police Department budget increased by 2.8 percent for FY24.
A new deputy chief role is being added to the department that will be a “game changer,” Quesada said. This position, he said, will help with communication within the department and with the community.
“The major thing that a deputy chief will assist me with is … ensuring that we are being responsive, we are being proactive with the community,” Quesada said. “It’s essentially the second in command.”
There is also an increase in fuel costs, uniforms, and ammunition.
“We had two new trainees this year, which skyrocketed those costs,” Quesada said. “We are looking at the same thing for fiscal year 24.”
The ammunition is for service training, he said. The department has mandatory firearm trainings during the year in order to have state-certified police officers.
“That is for our entire full staffing of 32 officers as well as our new additional officers who are now in the police academy,” Quesada said. “Not only are we increasing the uniform cost, but we now have to supply them with … 5,000 bullets of ammunition during their training.”
Over FY23, the department was faced with “unforeseeable” costs, he said, due to training.
“When you look at our training and you look at our overtime, and it all goes hand in hand with our staffing, but our training hours have increased,” Quesada said.
This included CPR training, taser training, discretionary training, crisis intervention team training, de-escalation training, and active shooter training. They also had an accreditation training come up, which he said cost between $10,000 and $12,000.
“We hired two additional officers this year, which was at least about $6,000 just for the hiring process, and so when you look at that, we coupled that together, that is a large chunk of our budget,” Quesada said.
Another aspect that cost the department extra was the “traffic recirculation pattern” when schools in town were being consolidated. This cost $9,500.
“You might not say it’s a lot when you look at our overall budget, but it does take a good portion away from our monies,” Quesada said.
The department was able to make some savings due to staff reductions. After analyzing the calls for service, one officer was taken off of every shift.
“It helped twofold, we allowed our officers some time off and then it also decreased overtime by about $294,000,” Quesada said, “What we’re trying to do is ensure that we’re being efficient with our staffing, as well as being prudent with our financial resources.”
