MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The costs keep piling up for the Memphis body camera program, and they are still sitting on the shelf.
Tuesday, the City Council was told it will cost 10 million more taxpayer dollars to deal with video storage. That is on top of the $9.4 million contract with TASER for the cameras.
City councilmen told WREG this would not mean more money out of your pocket, but it does mean making a midyear change to the current budget.
The Memphis City Council approved $2 million dollars for body cameras.
It is money the Council planned to spend as part of the $9.4 million dollar five-year TASER contract. They just did not expect to spend it so soon.
The council voted to shift around some unused money inside the police department’s budget to pay for it.
“All that $2 million was, was moving money to the budget so it could be applied to the contract for body cameras. So that money was already in the budget. It’s not new money. It’s just being applied to body cameras,” Doug McGowen, the chief operating officer for the City of Memphis explained.
The department is planning to get those cameras in service, although there is no timeline yet.
Only three of the 1,700 body cameras the city owns are being used.
Pastor Earle Fisher with the Grassroots Coalition wants to see police body cameras on Memphis streets, but he wants to see the city be fiscally responsible in managing them.
“We could find ways to be cost efficient and still provide the general public with what’s needed.”
That is only dealing with this video.
The district attorney said she will also need at least $1 million more to have enough staff to handle the video on her end.
