The City of Washington might be using some of its remaining American Rescue Plan Act dollars to upgrade the police department’s camera system.

Police Chief Jim Lester explained to the city council at their recent meeting that the department currently uses two different models from the same vendor, one of them that is discontinued and has had recent equipment failures. Other issues include that the cameras require a manual upload of footage, replacements have about doubled in price, the body cameras don’t sync with in-car video, and to give copies of footage to others like the county attorney it involves burning a DVD. Lester recommended that they upgrade to the same system as the sheriff’s office, and he showed how the visibility of their current cameras pale in comparison to the sheriff’s.

His package proposal is quoted at about $20,345 with a future annual licensing/software/storage fee of about $5,759. This includes one in-car video system with a five-year warranty for the newest patrol unit, 13 body cameras with one year warranty and mounting equipment, a multi-bay docking station, a one-time set-up/configuration/training fee, and first year software/storage of video. Lester has researched the proposal for a few months, and at one point it was priced at $70,000. Mayor Jaron Rosien said he felt good about the $20,000 price tag, but not the annual approximate $6,000. Council Member Danielle Pettit-Majewski asked instead of scheduling vehicle camera replacements over the next three years that they just upgrade them all at once, “This wouldn’t be my first choice for ARPA funding, I think I’ve been pretty clear but I do think that as government our technology does not allow us to be super efficient, and I do think that there’s a lot of waste I think, the process that you described in your existing camera units. So I think if we’re going to use one-time money to do an overhaul, then I think we need to be cognizant about what this is going to look like.”

Lester said her suggestion would bring the proposal up to five car camera replacements, one of which already has $3,000 budgeted as they just received the vehicle. Finance Director Kelsey Brown shared that this project could be funded from a future bond issue, the Local Option Sales Tax Fund, or from ARPA funds, of which the city has around $322,441 not specified. The council directed Lester to get more information on the quote.