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Show Police Budget Presented to City The City Council, Manager and municipal department heads continue to work this week on the proposed city budget for the coming fiscal year. Hearings on the 1982-1983 1982-1983 budget will be held in May with the complete financial package expected to be adopted by the Council aroynd June 15. TFor the next month the Council will be reviewing departmental budgets with various department heads. Last week they met in work session with Police Chief Frank Bell to hear his financial requests for the coming year. i Last year the City budgeted $399,569 for the police department, but it appears as if $458,198 will actually be expended. Bell explains the department is over budget largely because of the purchase of liability insurance insur-ance which placed the Citv in a precarious situation should a law suit stem from police activities. Bell said the insurance coverage represented repre-sented a significant, unexpected, unex-pected, but very necessary expense. Next year Bell proposes a police department budget of $529,000 which includes salary increases and the addition of one new officer. His budget also calls for the department to purchase a teletype for around $6,000 that will allow Park City to communicate with other departments. According to Bell a teletype is a necessary piece of equipment for any department no matter the size. Right now if the PCPD wants to put out an "all points bulletin" they have to place separate phone calls to all departments with which they want to communicate. The police budget also calls for new uniforms for the officers which iwere modeled before Council members last week. '..'The Department would like :to implement its own dispatching dis-patching service but realizes the $ 140,000 expense may be prohibitive this year. Bell feels a modified system could be implemented for less however. Bell's goals for the coming year include increasing the Department's crime clearance clear-ance rate by expanding detective operations; establishing, estab-lishing, a firm policy on alcohol related enforcement, reduce the instance of false alarms, and improve the Department's 24 hour a day operations by either implementing imple-menting a modified dispatch system or keeping the office open around the clock. He concludes most of his goals can be achieved with relatively minimal expense. |