By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—The Brandon Selectboard and the Budget Committee convened on Monday evening to discuss funding for the Brandon Police Department (BPD) for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2025.
BPD’s budget for the current fiscal year stands at $856,400, representing approximately 26% of Brandon’s total budget of $3,261,930.
The question that the assemblage grappled with on Monday was twofold: how much police coverage does Brandon want and how much will taxpayers be willing to pay for it?
“What level of policing should we have?” asked Selectboard Chair Doug Bailey at the beginning of the session. “This is our most difficult meeting yet. We don’t have a solid idea what the public wants.”
BPD currently employs a Police Chief and six officers, plus a K-9 unit. This is the first time in years that BPD has been fully staffed. In previous years, staffing shortfalls prevented the department from providing 24/7 on-duty coverage. Instead, the department provided on-call coverage for night shifts, meaning that officers went home at night unless called in for duty. This arrangement resulted in low morale for officers, who often found it disruptive to their home lives, and in substantial overtime expenditures for the town.
When the Selectboard set the current year’s police budget, it did not assign specific amount to specific line items, instead giving Police Chief David Kachajian the responsibility for managing the budget to cover his department’s expenses for the year.
In July, at the start of the current fiscal year, Chief Kachajian began to schedule his officers so that they would be able to provide 24/7 on-duty coverage. It became apparent within a month or two, however, that this arrangement was generating excessive amounts of overtime for the officers. BPD depleted its budgeted overtime for the entire year before the end of the first fiscal quarter on September 30.
The new arrangement had officers working 48 hours one week and 32 hours the next, for a total of 80 hours for the two-week pay period. However, the Police Union contract stipulates that any hours in excess of 40 for any given week must be counted as overtime. So, every officer was accruing 8 hours of overtime in every two-week pay period even though they were working only 80 hours in total.
When the oversight was caught, Town Manager Seth Hopkins, who supervises BPD, worked with Chief Kachajian and the Police Union to put an end to the overtime and try to get BPD back on a path to end the fiscal year on or close to budget.
But the town is still left with the question of whether to fund 24/7 coverage, which would require more officers, or to return to on-call coverage with current staff or even to reduce staff in order to reduce expenses after this spring’s turmoil, when the town budget failed twice at the ballot box.
Mr. Hopkins had prepared for Monday’s meeting 3 funding proposals for the board and committee to discuss:
- “Scenario F”: a reduction of $100K to $750,000, which will reduce the overall town budget by 3 percentage points. It would pay for the Chief, 3 full-time officers, and one part-time officer. It would require laying off two officers (with one current officer already slated to leave). 14 hours of on-duty coverage on weekdays and 10 hours of on-call coverage on weeknights. This scenario would save the average Brandon taxpayer $50 per year.
- “Scenario F-plus”: funding at current levels. On-duty coverage would be better than in Scenario F. It would pay for the Chief, 4 full-time officers, and 1 part-time officer. It would require laying off one officer (with one officer already slated to leave).
- “Scenario A”: an increase of $150,000 to $1 million. This would increase the current town budget by 5 percentage points. It would pay for the Chief, six full-time officers, and two part-time officers. This scenario would cost the average Brandon taxpayer an additional $75 per year.
The Selectboard had placed an “advisory” question on the ballot last March asking voters whether they wanted the town to hire additional officers in order to provide 24/7 coverage. The results were 55% in favor and 45% opposed. The board and committee members were split as to how to interpret those results.
Committee member Barry Varian stated that the group shouldn’t debate specific funding options until it had further direction from the community. Committee member Tricia Welch wondered if the Chief needed more guardrails to prevent mismanagement of whatever budget the Selectboard ultimately sets. Committee member Jan Coolidge said that she was surprised to see a scenario that envisaged any cuts at all, given that over half of voters had approved of hiring additional officers.
“We need at least the same level or 24/7. Safety is everything,” said Ms. Coolidge.
Committee member Karen Rhodes asked whether the town would be charged by the Vermont State Police (VSP) for calls that come in when BPD has no officers on duty.
BPD Chief Davd Kachajian, who was in attendance, replied that VSP doesn’t charge for calls but will simply not respond to communities that have their own departments when officers are available for on-call service.
Cecil Reniche-Smith, who had been on the Selectboard when the current budget was designed but was at the meeting as an observer, noted that the ultimate decision whether to expand or reduce the department lies with the Selectboard as the town’s elected representatives, though it might be worth getting more input from the community.
Mr. Hopkins said that he had been receiving “mixed messages” from the community with respect to BPD. The results of the ballot question seemed to indicate a willingness to spend more money on public safety, but the two failed budget proposals also seemed to indicate a desire to cut costs.
Members of the Brandon first-response services, including Brandon Fire Dept. (BFD) Chief Tom Kilpeck and Brandon Area Rescue Squad (BARS) Chief Andy Jackson, explained to the group that their work often depends on the presence of BPD officers and that any reduction in police staffing would cause delays in life-saving services.
“If you need to spend money, the police are worth it,” said Mr. Jackson. “How do you put a price tag on people’s lives?”
Chief Kachajian echoed the sentiment, noting that when the department is understaffed, they can’t always respond to all the calls that come in and that BPD might not get to some calls for hours.
The group also debated the pros and cons of removing BPD from the main budget and asking voters to approve or reject it on its own, much like an appropriation. Mr. Bailey noted that Castleton approaches its budget this way, with every department a separate question on the ballot. Board member Tim Guiles suggested that the budget could contain a baseline amount for BPD with different levels of staffing presented as separate ballot questions. Ms. Coolidge objected, saying that the budget should be presented as a whole.
Committee member Gabe McGuigan noted that outreach would be important to educate the community about the actual impacts of the budget. He stated that actual numbers, as had been provided at the meeting by Mr. Hopkins, were much easier for people to grasp than percentage increases or decreases.
Mr. Bailey stated that the Board would need to reach out to the community in multiple ways to get feedback and explain its decisions well in advance of Town Meeting, perhaps even scheduling public feedback meetings as early as December.
No decisions about funding were made at Monday’s meeting. The next budget meeting will take place on Monday, December 2 at 7 p.m. in the Selectboard meeting room at Brandon Town Hall.
