The Pulaski County Prosecutor’s Office is getting a new investigator vehicle. Prosecutor Dan Murphy plans to get a 2019 Dodge Charger from Braun. “We’ll have about a $12,000 discount buying it through that program that the State Police use for vehicles,” Murphy told the county council Monday. Once the discount, trade-in, and the addition of a police package are taken into account, the final cost is around $26,400.
Murphy said the new car will replace a 2010 Chevy Impala. “Currently, that has 175,000 miles on it,” he explained. “This is the one that is starting to die with rust and slippage in the transmission. And the most important thing is that the airbags don’t work, so they won’t drive it to give us an estimate on a trade-in. They took it and told us it would be a thousand dollars.”
The county commissioners approved the purchase last week. On Monday, the county council made the funding arrangements. Council members agreed to transfer most of the necessary funds from other line items in the prosecutor’s budget. The rest will be funded by an additional appropriation of about $6,500 from pretrial diversion user fees. Another $6,200 in pretrial diversion funds will be made available to make up a shortfall in the part-time help budget.
Other budget transfers approved Monday will let the Prosecutor’s Office contribute funds for helmets for the Sheriff’s Department and a new technology system for Superior Court. “None of this will impact taxes in the future,” Murphy said, “as the money that’s being transferred is already in my budget and the additional appropriation is coming out of the user fee fund, which is paid for by people who we put on pretrial diversion.”
