Committee of the Whole 10/13/26 - Budget Night Two

The City of Racine Committee of the Whole’s second 2027 budget-night meeting on October 13, 2026, consisted of department presentations and questions; no budget or procurement votes were taken. The main prospective purchase discussed was the Police Department’s replacement/expansion of its license plate reader camera system. Staff reported an Axon quote for 40 cameras at approximately $118,000 per year on a five-year contract, with pricing potentially increasing after January 1; Motorola had provided a quote, but staff had not completed a vendor presentation. The proposal would use capital funds and had not been approved. The current Flock arrangement was nearing its end, with sound detection continuing under the existing contract while the transition was addressed. Police also discussed controls on data access and auditing. The library director said the library reviewed four consultant proposals and selected Rachel Art in late August to lead its strategic-planning process; no contract value was stated.

Other budget and project discussions included planned parks capital work, including a bridge replacement and lift-station replacement, and ongoing prioritization of facility and playground needs. Customer Service described planned online licensing, permitting, payment, and water-billing improvements involving Polymorphic, Tyler Technologies, and Stripe, including transaction processing fees of roughly 3–3.4%; these were implementation plans, not new awards. The meeting also covered the proposed point-of-sale sump-pump inspection ordinance and the wastewater system’s infiltration-and-inflow reduction requirements, but no action on the ordinance was taken during this meeting. Fire officials noted that the firefighters’ labor agreement contributed to an approximately 10% budget increase, while police explained that loss of grant funding shifted about $1 million of existing overtime costs to the general fund. The meeting recessed before the next day’s public hearing.