Warwick Council Splits Over Police Vehicle Spending, Approves 16 Cars After Tie Vote

The Warwick Town Council voted 6-2 to approve the purchase of 16 police vehicles for just over $1.7 million, following a finance committee session in which two councilmen challenged the pace of the department's fleet replacement and its reliance on federal pandemic relief funds, according to the Warwick Town Council's published meeting recording.

The council's Finance Committee took up the request at its July 6 meeting. Councilman Robert Hart, presenting for the Warwick Police Department, told the committee the department wants to buy Ford and Chevrolet vehicles from three vendors under a regional cooperative purchasing agreement. The vehicles would go to supervisors, administration, patrol, traffic and investigations units, and would be funded through the city's lease-purchase program as part of the fiscal year 2027 police capital budget.

A council member pressed Hart on the department's purchasing history, stating the city bought 98 vehicles between 2022 and the proposed 2027 purchase — a pace he said far outstrips the five-to-six-year rotation schedule the department has cited. Hart did not dispute the six-year total but said the department's purchasing has averaged about 16 vehicles a year going back to 2010, and that vehicles are also lost to crashes and mechanical failure, not simply retired on schedule.

The same council member also raised the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, saying the city had already spent more than $2.6 million in ARPA money on vehicles in 2023, 2024 and 2025 alone. He argued that between that ARPA spending and the new purchase, the city was replacing vehicles at a rate well beyond what a five- or six-year rotation would require, and questioned whether the accelerated pace was necessary rather than simply desired. Hart maintained the request was not excessive.

Questioning also focused on vehicle size and cost. The council member asked why the department needed two Ford Explorer utility vehicles for traffic duty at roughly $75,000 apiece and two larger Chevrolet Tahoe vehicles for supervisors at about $88,000 each, rather than outfitting the whole purchase with smaller Explorers at a lower per-unit cost. Hart said traffic vehicles carry additional equipment and lighting for highway work, and that the Tahoes offer more interior space for sergeants who need to set up a command post at an incident scene — space he said the Explorers do not provide.

A separate line of questions focused on financing. A council member asked whether the vehicles were being purchased through a lease-purchase arrangement and, if so, whether the $1.7 million figure included interest. A city finance official told the committee the interest cost had not yet been determined, since the city has not gone out to bid for the financing, and that any interest charges would be added later and paid through a separate debt account. Historically, the official said, the city has financed such purchases over five to six years, though it has used terms as long as ten years.

The committee's vote to recommend the purchase ended in a tie, which under council rules sent the item to the full council floor without a recommendation from the committee. When the full council took it up later in the meeting, it passed by voice vote, 6-2. The two dissenting councilmen — the same two who had raised concerns in committee — voted no, citing the pace of spending and what one described as a city budget already "stretched to the max" across departments.

The vehicles will be funded through the city's lease-purchase capital program rather than a direct cash outlay, with actual financing terms and interest costs to be presented to the council separately once the city solicits bids for the debt.