Wasco County Sheriff’s deputies will be wearing body cameras this fall, after county commissioners approved the expenditure at their meeting yesterday. Chief Deputy Scott Williams told commissioners just how important they can be:
06 02 22 Williams 1 :06 “It protects the agency, it protects the deputies, and it’s just transparent to the public.”
And these days, the price is right.
06 92 22 Williams 2 :18 “When I started looking at body cameras about five years ago, it was about $500,000, and the technology’s down and there’s enough competitiveness out there that it’s down to about $14,000 a year. So I think that’s reasonable for the cloud storage, and every 18 months we get new cameras.”
Commissions covered a lot of ground in the lengthy meeting, including approving budgets for the 4-H and Extension Service, the library district and the county itself, for the new fiscal year that starts June 1. Wasco County Commissioner Scott Hege added:
” I would move to adopt Resolution 22-004, adopting the 2022-2023 fiscal budget for Wasco County with a total appropriation of $79,901,427 and approving the tax rate of $4.2523 per thousand of assessed value, all subject to the general government limitation.”
That budget also included pass-through money destined for other agencies. All votes passed unanimously