The Hooksett Budget Committee made deep cuts in the proposed Police Department budget, including significant erasures in the wages and benefits lines.

The committee cut more than $200,000 from the $4.1 million budget that was recommended by the Town Council. Roughly $168,000 – enough money to hire a lieutenant detective and a dispatcher for the police department – came from the wages and benefit lines alone.

Budget Committee member J.R. Ouellette said the budget surpluses that the Police Department routinely accrues speak to the fact that their overall bottom line is too big.

“Over the past five years, (Police Chief Steve Agrafiotis) has had over $300,000 at the end of the year to play around with it and do with what he wants,” Ouellette said.

David Pearl, also a member of the committee, said the fact that the Police Department spent $33,000 on a new sign for the Safety Center speaks to the reality it is overfunded.

“We need to trim (the budget) down because the sign issue was on obvious misuse of those intended funds,” Pearl said.

The Budget Committee cut the bottom line based on salaries and benefits for positions that are not currently filled.

Over $73,000 was cut during one motion – enough money to fill the currently empty dispatch position. Another $95,000, which would have funded the salary and benefits of an administrative lieutenant detective position, was cut separately.

Additionally, the Budget Committee voted to zero-out the $13,000 miscellaneous line as they cut the proposed $75,000 legal line to $50,000.

Budget Committee member Mark Miville said he thought $75,000 for legal services spoke poorly of the department’s management practices.

“The turnover is very high in this department,” Miville said. “They need to get their act together. It’s a reflection of management and not just employee issues.”

But Police Commission Chairman David Gagnon said cutting funding for wages, benefits, legal fees and other miscellaneous items does not make the need for those items go away.

“Let’s take the miscellaneous line. It still has to be funded because it pays for blood tests, it pays for prisoner meals, it pays for blankets. So even though they zeroed-out the line, it doesn’t zero-out the need for it,” Gagnon said. “Yes, we all know it’s a bottom line budget. What they used for their lines to cut made no sense at all. More than likely, it’s patrol that’s going to suffer.”

In other business, the Budget Committee increased the library’s budget by $17,475 so that employee salaries would be more equitable with those in comparable towns.

The Budget Committee will vote on its final budget recommendations at a public hearing Thursday, March 5.