{"id":25203,"date":"2025-04-10T09:22:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=25203"},"modified":"2025-04-10T09:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T13:25:31","slug":"brick-pd-handled-over-100000-calls-for-the-first-time-in-2024-but-came-in-under-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2025\/04\/brick-pd-handled-over-100000-calls-for-the-first-time-in-2024-but-came-in-under-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick PD Handled Over 100,000 Calls For the First Time in 2024 (But Came In Under Budget)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Twp. Police car. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Doing \u201cmore with less\u201d is often panned as a corporate clich\u00e9, but the Brick Township Police Department literally accomplished as much in 2024, handling a record-breaking number of calls for service while ending the year significantly under budget.<\/p>\n

Chief David Forrester said that in 2023, he made a number of organizational changes to reallocate resources toward placing more officers on the road, a policy which resulted in the department saving $2,192,644 over two years despite one of the largest upticks in call volume in recent history. In 2024, he said, the department fielded a record number of calls for service, breaking the six-figure mark for the first time. Last year, the department handled a staggering 103,369 calls for service, representing an increase of 6,937 call over the prior year. Over two years, the number of calls has increased by more than 8,500.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis achievement reflects the hard work and commitment of our staff through the busiest year of our department\u2019s history,\u201d Forrester said during a hearing on the police department\u2019s budget this week. \u201cI am pleased with our 2024 operating results.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, the department\u2019s main salary budget will total $23,950,400 for regular salaries and $1,150,000 for overtime, assuming it is adopted unchanged by the council from Mayor Lisa Crate\u2019s fiscal proposal. Last year, $22,424,000 was budgeted and $21,932,566 was spent on regular salaries.<\/p>\n

The reason for the increase in the salary budget, Forrester said, will be the addition of new Class I special officers and their associated training. The department will move to a full 25-person roster of Class I special officers from 19 presently. The Class I officers, who serve part-time and are not armed, handle parking enforcement, traffic details, bookings, municipal court security and security at township meetings. Adding Class I officers has, historically, allowed full-time sworn patrolmen to remain on the road, responding to calls, rather than completing booking forms and other administrative tasks.<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s general operating budget \u2013 separate from salaries \u2013 will rise to $330,850 from $309,690 spent in 2024 (about $5,000 under the allocated budget) due to the rising cost of equipment, such as ammunition, radio system infrastructure and service plans, bulletproof vests, and maintaining the network of security cameras throughout the town.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do need to plan for unforeseen situations,\u201d said Forrester, adding that the department was lucky in 2024 that there were no major crimes or natural disasters that would have generated more overtime or required additional equipment.<\/p>\n

Forrester said the department is seeking to add more dispatchers in 2025 to handle the increase in call volume. The department will also budget $428,250 for vehicles, as older vehicles are retired and repurposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn most cases, the older patrol vehicles that are still serviceable are reallocated to non-patrol uses in the department,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The department will also continue to carry 17 full-time crossing guards, and 30 seasonal crossing guards during the summer. Overall, the department employs 228 people, including 146 full-time sworn officers, 19 Class I special officers and 24 full-time and two part-time communications officers (dispatchers). A number of civilian administrative employees, a fleet maintenance worker and a radio technician are also employed by the department.<\/p>\n

Forrester said that while no police department would turn down additional personnel, current staffing levels are adequate the number of calls to which the department responds, and there was no need to increase the number of full-time officers this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is vital: protecting the safety and well-being of every member of our community.,\u201d he said. \u201cOur greatest asset is our team of 228 employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Lisa Crate\u2019s proposed 2025 operating budget<\/a>, town-wide, would raise taxes by 1.9 cents per $100 of assessed property valuation, which translates to an increase of $47 per year for the owner of a home assessed at the township\u2019s average. The overall operating budget for the township is proposed to be $122,711,490.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doing \u201cmore with less\u201d is often panned as a corporate clich\u00e9, but the Brick Township Police Department literally accomplished as much in 2024, handling a record-breaking number of calls for service while ending the year significantly under budget. Chief David Forrester said that in 2023, he made a number of organizational changes to reallocate resources […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[5428,24,129,4484],"class_list":["post-25203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-2025-municipal-budget","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-brick-township-police-department","tag-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DSC_0259.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-6yv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25204,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25203\/revisions\/25204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}