BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The Burlington City Council has passed a resolution to study the police department’s staffing needs.
Monday night, Democrats on the council proposed several different public safety resolutions. One included reexamining the current cap of 87 officers in the city.
Councilors have now asked the department and other partners to study the cap to see if it needs to change and to update the council on recruitment efforts. A report is expected by December.
Some councilors believe changing the cap will help the staffing problems, others do not.
“This proposal, while yes it is symbolic in some ways, it takes the very concrete step of removing what has been clearly identified as a recruiting hurdle by the very people who work in the police department,” said Becca Brown McKnight, D-Burlington City Council.
“I just cannot get past this idea that the problem with recruitment is that we have a cap of 87 officers when we don’t even have 70. You are constantly bringing up the cap when we cannot reach the cap,” said Marek Broderick, P-Burlington City Council.
Councilors also passed a measure asking the Legislature to address gun safety concerns and to ban guns in bars.
Two other measures were postponed until the next meeting.