Last week the Kirksville City Council spent hours discussing the 2010 budget. The city is faced with choosing whether requests will stay in the budget or be cut.
The Kirksville Police Department requested $30,000 for equipment and salaries to support the Special Response Team. That money will buy ten new vests for the 13 member team, a ballistics shield, and pay members salaries for training and operation of the team. That request was not in the proposed budget because the council wanted more information before approving the money.
“The vests that we currently have are 10 years old as of August. The life expectancy for ballistic vets is 5 years. Of course some of that has to do with the wear and tear as well so they’re well over their life expectancy,” said Kirksville Police Department Deputy Chief Tim King. “The money that we’ve requested is $2000 a piece to replace ten vets at this point. The other 3 vests that we have are under the 5 year period and we’ve purchased with some grant funds from Homeland Security we had. Unfortunately those grant funds only allow us to purchase for a new officer who is added to the team.”
King says each vest is specifically made for the officer to give them the best protection possible. He says when the vests are used longer than 5 years they are no longer efficient in protecting the officer. The new vests will offer better protection and should stop all hand gun ammunition as well as rifles.
King says if they don’t get the funding, they’ll continue to work with what they have. “If we don’t get the funding we’re probably going to try to switch a couple out, you know, every year for a while which will still mean that some vests will have 15 years on them before we can probably rotate through all of them.”
Finance Director Laura Guy tells KTVO the council will most likely approve a replacement program type of funding. That means approximately $10,000 will be allotted for equipment.
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