Police Chief Requests New Officers

During the second night of budget hearings, Chief Cecilia Ashe requested that council fund new police officers for the Milford Police Department. Three officers were part of the 2026 budget and were start attending the academy in 2025. The other three were to be added for the upcoming budget year. Ashe was the fourth department head to ask for additional staffing during budget hearings. Before presenting her budget, Ashe read a statement.

“I’m here tonight to present a data driven path forward for how our community safety. I want to state clearly at the outset, this proposal is not designed to pit departments against departments, nor is it an attempt to recreate frictions between city administration and the police department that our city recently experienced in prior years,” Ashe said. “I think when we look at each of these directors, the city manager, and people coming forward asking for the personnel that they need. It is not us pitting department against department. It is us asking for a level of excellence in each division, and each director expects nothing less from their employees than that excellence.”

Ashe pointed out that city staff were all on the same team and managing the massive challenge of growth in Milford.

“Our administration and this council have done an excellent job scaling up our city infrastructure. When new developments pull hundreds of permits, we wisely add staff throughout the city to manage that growth. However, between 2018 and last fiscal year, our authorized police staffing remained the same up until last year,” Ashe said. “This request is not an expansion into optional or luxury units. This is a structural restoration. The exact same residential growth that creates utility bills, code inspections, also drives the shift in community needs such as quality-of-life issues. One example would be the homelessness.”

In addition, the many food production facilities in Milford bring hundreds of commuters into the city each day, Ashe explained. She also pointed out that Milford was the geographic gateway to Delaware beaches, adding significant seasonal traffic in the police jurisdiction.

“When you look at our roster, we are authorized for 40 officers on paper, serving a resident population of approximately 14,000 to 15,000, that looks like a standard ratio, but the paper statistics don’t reflect the reality of our streets,” Ashe said. “We have an authorized strength of 40 officers. Our operational number shows that we are around 31 with three in the academy, three vacancies, and currently three out on FMLA. These numbers fluctuate daily based off of sick leave, military leave and the demands of the new laws around FMLA and that employees are taking longer periods of time than they used to.”

Ashe pointed out that this did not account for officers who are sick or take vacation, leading to an officer count that fluctuate daily.

“Unlike other departments in the city, we run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year. We currently face three vacancies which the command staff is working aggressively towards recruiting and filling those positions, which as displayed in the budget slide that was created by Lou,” Ashe said. “We are in the final stages of that with the background phase for those employees, and we anticipate filling those for probably an August Academy start date, but filling vacancies only brings us back to the lagging staffing model that has already been completely outpaced by our truly daily population.”

Finance Director Lou Vitola reminded council that the chief had asked for six officers last year, but budget constraints required council to only approve three and those three would likely not be certified officers until 2027. Council did not question the need for the officers as they did the requests from other department heads. Mayor Todd Culotta asked why there was such an increase in vehicle fleet.

“I believe that coincides with the take home vehicles,” Vitola said. “We added 17 vehicles and with our vehicle and equipment replacement program, we take the expected life of the vehicle and the expected replacement cost of the vehicles and try to allocate a pro-rate share of the replacement costs each year. I think from 2025 to 2026, it went from around the $50,000 range to the $200,000 range every year.”

Vitola pointed out that there would be years when quite a few vehicles would need replacement and years when there were very few. Culotta asked about the Police Enhancement Fund. After researching, Vitola stated that the fund had about $1 million in it. Culotta asked if that could be used for equipment replacement.

“Actually, we’re using most of that for the evidence bay and some is pegged to help offset some of the cost of the police facility itself,” Vitola said. “It is being used ot offset the debt service.”

Councilman Jason James asked Vitola to provide an across-the-board summary of what each new position, including the police would cost. Councilman Danny Perez asked about costs for the new evidence building. Vitola stated that was included in the Capital Improvement Plan, so it was not included in the regular budget.

“I would remind council that for the pole barn, we also received house appropriation money and we’re using grant funding in the total of $98,000 with the project costing around $93,000 and also using the remaining balance as a contingency line,” Ashe said. “But we also have the pending $98,000 that was approved in the budget last year for the pole barn. So, really, we have well over the amount in that and that should not be equated in this because it is counted and supplemented with grants.”

Perez asked about maintenance for the building and Ashe explained that the building was being constructed so that there would be little maintenance required.

“I think, too, that a couple things that are important to remember in this and not to harp on anything, but like I indicated, the police department is 365, 24 hours a day. As other departments have added on and justified those positions through temporary consultants and things like that, the police department does not have that luxury to do that,” Ashe said. “But I think it’s also important to highlight the great work that our command staff has done throughout the year since my time coming in, we are averaging probably close to $800,000 which hopefully next year will be in around the $1 million dollar mark in grant funding that comes in that offsets some of these expenses. And you know, one of the things that I pride myself on is really drilling down on these cost savings. And so, in the weeks to come, we will be drilling down with finance to make sure that a lot of these totals are adding up, because I believe we will have cost savings based on those grants that we’re obtaining, both federal and state.”

Culotta asked if the police had to come request use of the Police Enhancement Fund like the fire company. Vitola said that the only time they had used the fund was as a down payment on the police facility. After presentations by Public Works and the Electric Department, both of which asked for additional staff members as well, Kalesis made a comment.

“I just have a comment because I made a comment yesterday to Rob about how I enjoyed seeing his presentation because his ask wasn’t too big. So, I just wanted to make a comment to both Willis (Shafer, Public Works Director] and Tony [Chipola, Electric Supervisor],” Kalesis said. “I also do want to make sure that everybody knows that when we’re asking those questions, everybody always wants to add additional members to their staff, every department head. That money is not just sitting in our bank somewhere and we’re just not okay saying sure you want this, or you want that you can have it. That money is coming from the constituents. While we would love to do everything for everybody and give everybody as many people as they want to work with, sometimes you have to be very conservative, and you have to have police officers. And I want everybody to keep that in mind as they’re thinking about the whole budget. I just wanted to say thank you for being so conservative.”

The final budget hearing is planned for Thursday, May 14. Council will vote on the budget at a future meeting. The full budget can be found online.