Vienna is working to keep body-worn cameras, first implemented with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, in operation after the program’s federal funding expires.
The Capital Improvement Plan, presented to the Vienna Town Council at a work session on Monday, Sept. 15, included a plan to bridge the gap between the funding provided for the body cameras by ARPA and that funding being worked into the police department’s operating budget.
According to the CIP:
Using ARPA funds, the Police department entered into 5-year leases with Axion technology for in-car video and body camera video systems. The leases include rental of all the necessary equipment and cloud storage. This equipment has become critical for law enforcement. The courts and the public now demand quality video of officers’ interaction.
The budget notes that both leases were purchased at roughly the same time, and both will expire in 2027. The CIP funding will keep the programs active until then, at which point a new funding source will need to be identified.
Police Chief Jim Morris told the town council that the goal is to cover the body camera program through operating funds after the current leases end.
“We don’t want that in the CIP, we want that in operating costs,” he said at the work session. “But this would get us through 2027 for the operating cost.”
Vienna received a total of $17.1 million from ARPA, which was signed by then-president Joe Biden in 2021 to help state and local governments offset the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Local governments were allowed to spend the money on government services and water, sewer or broadband infrastructure in addition to emergency services and pay for “essential” workers.
Along with the body camera program, Vienna used its relief money to support a number of other capital projects, from in-car video and dispatch upgrades for the police to sewer maintenance and fencing around Maple Avenue’s refreshed planting beds.
Vienna isn’t alone in facing the challenge of compensating for waning federal resources: with ARPA funding ending, Fairfax County has also been struggling to find space in the budget to continue supporting programs that originally received federal support.
