SEVEN FIELDS — Police commissioners are planning to vote next week on the Evans City/Seven Fields Regional Police Department 2019 budget which includes funds for personnel and equipment upgrades.

The budget, which commissioners expect to approve Monday, features a 4.4 percent increase in expenses.

The budget draft calls for $837,219 in expenses, up from $794,115 planned for 2018, and expects to bring in $100,220 in income, up from $88,780 in 2018.

The figures include 4 percent salary increases for officers as laid out in the collective bargaining agreement that was signed last year, along with the allocation of funds for training, capital reserve projects and equipment purchases.

Tom Smith, Evans City-Seven Fields Regional police administrator, commended the efforts of the regional police department to modernize and maintain officers training and tools using the consolidated resources of Seven Fields and Evans City boroughs.

“Overall, I think the purchase of technology, the fleet management ... having a field training officer, which assures we’re getting professional officers, has been really beneficial,” Smith said. “I definitely give kudos to Chief (Joe) McCombs and the ranking officers.”

In addition to the salary increases, the department will allocate funds for a fifth full-time officer, a new plate reader, a police cruiser, technology upgrades and three body cameras to be used by on-duty officers.

This will be the first time the department has incorporated body cameras into its police work, something McCombs said was becoming more common across the country.

“It’s a trend today,” he said. “Just to cover what really occurs in high-end situations.”

Smith added that in the age of smart phone cameras and social media, it helps to have the officer’s perspective.

The department also calculated how much the boroughs have saved since switching to the regional police department in 2015, with both boroughs saving more than $200,000 in the past four years.

Next year, regionalization is expected to save Evans City $68,377 and Seven Fields $68,640, according to the department’s calculations based on the draft budget.