The police and fire departments presented their proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year today.
One of the biggest things affecting the police department’s budget is a state decision that cut the Roanoke Rapids magistrate office’s hours from 24 to 12 hours, Interim Chief Adam Bondarek told council during its work session.
That means officers arresting someone when the magistrate office is closed have to drive to Halifax.
“We went back and looked at how many times we went to Halifax when no one was here at the magistrate’s office.”
Officers made 480 trips. Figuring in fuel costs of $4 a gallon for the next fiscal year’s budget and officer time, that is an extra cost of $56,198. “We had no control over that,” Bondarek said. “We’ve got to take people to Halifax to put them in jail.”
Bondarek said the police department is looking at other ways to save fuel costs. “We get more officers needing the same schools to go on the same day in the same car. It hurts on overtime but it saves on gas. Some of the officers will take comp time.”
Of items the police department has no control over there is a $35,000 increase in the budget, he said. Of the items the police department can control there is a $14,969 decrease.
One of the things the police department will cut out this year is the popular National Night Out event. “It’s a great event,” Bondarek said, adding, however, with the current economic conditions and time constraints it presents, it was decided not to have it this year.
The biggest need for the fire department, Chief Gary Corbet said, is to replace two Yukons with 132,500 and 176,000 miles on them.
The vehicles were given to the fire department used by Dominion Power, the chief said. “I’m not asking to replace them with new ones. We can make good use with a vehicle with less miles.”
Corbet also said he is not asking for new equipment to use in the trucks. “We’ve been in touch with Dominion. The short answer was more folks found out Dominion is donating so there’s more hands out than ever before.”
The fire department is requesting $42,000 to buy two used vehicles.
