Assistant Chief Frederick "Eric" Warfield and Lieutenant McGovern presented the police department's budget priorities and operational data, emphasizing staffing, training, equipment and facility maintenance.

Warfield said the department now has 81 authorized civil‑service positions with several vacancies and pending medical retirements; he reported functional staffing is lower due to injuries, deployed personnel and vacancies. "Full staffing does not mean we will eliminate overtime. That is an impossibility when you're running a 24/7 police department," Warfield said, adding that injuries, deployments and training produce predictable overtime demands.

Warfield said the comp budget would cut one investigator line and the council's comp version also removes funding for school crossing guards. He warned those cuts would degrade investigative capacity and community services and said training lines are insufficient for required accreditation and evolving policing demands: ‘‘We owe it to [junior officers] to train them as best we can to better prepare them for these incidents that they're going to.’’

Warfield also reported an urgent facilities problem: a sewer vent incorrectly installed allowed raw sewage to enter the basement, affecting the boiler room and locker rooms and triggering pending plumbing repairs. He said building maintenance costs (plumbing/heating) have already reached thousands of dollars this year and noted an $11,000 pending plumbing quote.

Warfield and councilors discussed response‑time trends, special‑event staffing spikes (Belmont, SPAC) and the impacts of discovery and FOIL workload on civilian records staff. No formal personnel action was taken at the workshop; police and finance staff will work together to reconcile overtime, comp‑time and investigator assignments in the amended budget.