Armored vehicle not shielded from Waukesha budget debate

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department purchased a new armored vehicle, a military-type truck, in 2011. It is called the Bearcat, short for Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck. The city of Waukesha debated during the recent budget cycle whether it should purchase its own Bearcat to replace its aging armored vehicle in the coming years.
Published on: 11/19/2014

Though various expenses had been discussed in earlier Waukesha council and committee meetings leading up to the Nov. 11 meeting, at least one budget item in the city's Capital Improvement Plan still wasn't a unanimous choice.

As she had at a Nov. 6 meeting, Alderwoman Kathleen Cummings once again brought up the notion that the city's police department doesn't need a new armored vehicle, which is used in certain tactical situations along with a similar county vehicle. She wanted a $275,114 Bearcat Haz Mat Rescue vehicle removed from the five-year capital plan.

At that meeting, Cummings peppered Police Chief Russell Jack on the reasons the department needs a new Bearcat vehicle.

Cummings said at the Nov. 6 meeting that the city has to be more mindful of its spending.

"We have to get away from the mind-set that we need our own equipment on everything," Cummings said. "It's not fiscally responsible for us to continue to go down this line. When we purchase things sometimes we have other consequences. I don't believe it's needed. We have to be smarter."

Old vehicle

The city's current armored vehicle was given to the city for free in 1997 and retrofitted with armored plates to meet its needs. However, it was manufactured in 1985, and was on its "last leg a long time ago," Jack said.

The new vehicle would be a replacement, Jack said.

"It wasn't a matter of us not getting the sheriff department's (vehicle)," Jack said. "This one would replace ours so we could have two reliable armored cars on the scene."

Jack said the county has been very cooperative with allowing the city to use its Bearcat armored vehicle and would continue to use the regional Bearcat.

Needed at risky times

Armored vehicles, he said, are used for warrants issued for regular drug search and Internet crimes against children and when police respond to incidents in which people are armed with weapons.

Asked what would happen if there would be no armored vehicles available, Jack said the alternative would be sending "people without armored vehicles approaching the scene or using a squad car."

But Jack said "you have very limited parts of a squad car that will actually stop a bullet. It puts the officers in great jeopardy not having an armored car in those situations."

Ultimately, Cummings' motion to remove the vehicle from the CIP budget on Nov. 11 failed by a 13-2 vote, with Roger Patton the only other council member backing her proposal.

Planning ahead

City Administrator Ed Henschel and the Finance Committee did not recommend the vehicle for the 2015 budget, but Jack had asked that it not get pushed off the five-year plan completely so the council can have a discussion at this time next year about purchasing the vehicle for 2016.

"Anything in the five-year plan is not a commitment of dollars," Jack said. "It's just a placeholder."

In the year ahead, Jack has asked his staff to document when the city's 29-year-old vehicle doesn't start or operate properly.