The state law, signed by Gov. Christie in September, did create an additional $25 penalty for DUI convictions that municipalities can use to pay for the dashboard-camera program. But, Deptford contends, if it were to rely on that alone, it would take seven years to pay off just the first in-car camera system, including the necessary equipment, software, and video storage.
"You might as well make it zero dollars," Deptford Solicitor Doug Long said.
Several area police officials agreed that the $25 surcharge was an insufficient source of funds.
"The truth of the matter is, I don't know who gets enough drunks to fund this," said Samuel DiSimone, police chief in neighboring West Deptford.
"That's not even close," said Joseph M. Giordano Jr., the chief of the Greenwich Township Police Department.
Giordano went on a fund-raising campaign to local businesses and residents, netting $5,500; the township put together the rest, helping him raise the $10,000 he needed for eight body cameras, software, and an in-house computer system.
The department already had dashboard cameras on its patrol cars; now, K-9 officers and patrol officers will have both types of cameras, recording every encounter.
The department is to begin using the body cameras this week.
Asking for money - "I don't want to say 'beg' " - was the only way Greenwich police could have afforded the new system, Giordano said.
But it's unclear whether asking for private donations is a sustainable funding model for every municipality.
In West Deptford, the Police Department had for several years wanted to replace dashboard cameras that often didn't work.
Last year, the department received a $10,000 donation from a company in the township, which gave it the boost it needed to overhaul the system. The full price tag: $40,000 for equipment, including the car cameras and a computer server.
It also pays hundreds of dollars each month in data-storage fees.
West Deptford Police Chief DiSimone said he and his officers have also wanted body cameras for some time but aren't sure how to pay for them.
"In these times, you can't just go out to all the businesses and say, 'OK, now we're looking to buy body cameras, give us $40,000 for them,' " the chief said.
Evesham police turned to the Township Council for seed money, spending $16,000 last year for body cameras and $47,000 on a five-year data-storage contract.
Deptford filed its complaint in May with the state Council on Local Mandates, which is charged with determining whether state requirements on local government entities are paired with funding sources.
"There's not a municipality in the state, probably, that budgeted for that mandate," Deptford Mayor Paul Medany said last week.
The Council on Local Mandates is expected to hold a hearing on the matter in September, and its decision could have widespread implications.
The state Attorney General's Office has argued in its filing with the council that Deptford's complaint should be tossed. The $25 fee, for example, means the law isn't an "unfunded mandate," it has argued.
Backers of the law point to new efforts to offset the costs of camera programs.
When the state announced last week that $2.5 million from forfeiture money would be available to police departments across the state for body cameras, it noted that use of the devices on officers can satisfy the dashboard-camera requirement.
"Many police departments are expected to elect to acquire body cameras instead of dashboard cameras," the governor's office said in a statement.
State Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty (D., Gloucester), who sponsored the dashboard-camera law, urged police departments to apply for the new funding.
But eventually, he said, dashboard or body cameras "should just become standard equipment."
"This is going to become the equivalent of, you wouldn't outfit a cop without a gun, and handcuffs, and a computer in their car, and all the other things that go into outfitting a car," he said.
"It's taxpayer money, but I think the taxpayers see the value, and I don't think this technology is overly expensive," he said.
Deptford's cause is supported by the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, which expressed concerns about the costs of implementing the program before the law's approval.
"We are not against body cameras - in fact, they actually make a lot of sense," Ed Purcell, a staff attorney with the league, said. But the state "has to provide a funding source that's not property taxes."
Questions about funding will begin to take on greater significance as the police-camera movement grows, said Elizabeth Groff, a criminal justice professor at Temple University who has been working with Philadelphia police on their pilot body-camera program.
"The scary part for you and I is, we're the taxpayer. So as this goes nationwide - and it seems to be an unstoppable wave at this point - we're going to get hit up, I have a feeling, to pay for all this," she said.
Maybe that's OK, said Deputy Chief Vernon R. Marino of the Paulsboro Police Department, which spent $71,000 from a bond issue to pay for 14 body cameras and five years of maintenance, repair, and data storage.
"Especially with recent events, I don't know how many taxpayers would say, 'Don't raise my taxes so the cops have body cameras,' " Marino said.
©2015 The Philadelphia Inquirer, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
