Police Chief: 2014 Budget Will Require Tough Decisions

Portsmouth Police Chief Stephen DuBois said he will have to find a way to make up a more than $267,000 budget gap between what the department needs for its fiscal year 2014 budget and the City Council’s 4 percent budget ceiling.

During the Portsmouth Police Commission's first public budget hearing at City Hall on Monday night, DuBois said that if the city wants to maintain the same level of police services it has this year, that would require a 7.03 percent budget increase, which would be 3.03 percent higher than what the City Council has requested from city departments.

Two positions that DuBois said he would like to add to the department would be a police lieutenant for community relations and a sergeant for patrol. He said he would also like to add an 11th dispatcher. Those additions would necessitate a budget increase of 8.8 percent, which would total $9,614,977, he said.

But at the 4 percent budget ceiling set by the City Council, DuBois said the police department budget would be $9,192,439. The only way he could add those additional positions would be to find ways to cut $267,575.

“The problem is the only way that difference can be made up is with the elimination of programs and people,” DuBois said.

Over the last decade, DuBois said the ranks of the police department have already decreased by 10 sworn police officers. He said that from 2002 to 2012, the police department has gone from 71 sworn officers to 61 sworn officers.

One of the challenges faced by the Portsmouth Police Department is having to absorb the New Hampshire State Retirement System costs for police pensions and benefits.

DuBois said that if the state retirement system honored its prior obligations and contributed $257,000 to fully fund the pensions for two police officers who retired last year and the benefits for two new police officers that were hired last year, the police department would be able to find the money needed to fund a fiscal year 2014 budget with a 7.03 percent increase.

“We could make our budget,” he said.