Old Lyme — Police body-worn cameras could be rolled out within the next two months after sitting unused in town for more than a year.

Resident State Trooper Matt Weber said the delay involved expensive questions about how to store the footage and handle requests from the public to view it. The answers came when the Connecticut State Police agreed to take on the task through June 2023, he said.

There are 53 towns participating in the resident state trooper program, which provides a dedicated state trooper in places that don't have an independent police department. Some of those towns, like Colchester and Montville, use their resident state trooper to oversee a force of local officers. In Old Lyme, the resident state trooper is responsible for six officers with full police powers.

Weber, who gets his paycheck from the state police, has the authority to supervise and direct local police operations, while the town is responsible for administrative functions.

While Weber and fellow members of the state police have been outfitted with body cameras for years, the clock is ticking on the deadline for a provision in the state legislature's sweeping police accountability law requiring every police department in the state to have body and dashboard cameras by July 2022.

The legislation, meant to reform policing statewide, came in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by an officer in Minneapolis in 2020.

Officers should be wearing the body cameras within a month or two, according to the resident state trooper.

"I can't wait until they're up and running," he said. "The body cameras have done nothing but great things for the state police, as far as I'm concerned."

He said body camera footage can be used to dispel false accusations against police.

"I don't know how we worked for so long without them," he said.

Proponents of the police accountability bill say the cameras are also a way to monitor police conduct and hold officers accountable.

Police departments are required under the state Freedom of Information Act to release body camera footage unless it involves minors, victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, homicide, suicide or a fatal accident. There are certain permissions outlined in statute that allow for the release of video that includes minors, however.

State police have agreed to store the footage until the town's current resident trooper contract with the state is up next summer, according to First Selectman Tim Griswold. He said the arrangement is possible because state police are already storing dashboard camera footage for the town.

Weber estimated it will cost somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000 per year for the service when the town needs to pick up the bill over a year from now.

The temporary storage arrangement comes despite the state's adamant position that towns are on their own when it comes to managing body camera footage.

Col. Stavros Mellekas, commanding officer of the state police, warned municipalities in the resident state trooper program that they are responsible for "any costs associated with interfacing, connecting, storing, retrieving and/or creating" the footage.

His March 2020 letter emphasized state police would not be responsible for buying or storing data from body cameras or dashboard cameras belonging to town constables, nor would they be responsible for costs associated with fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests to view the footage.

'No one keeps a list'

Departments in many local towns already have body cameras, starting with Groton Town in 2017. Since then, officers in Ledyard, Norwich, Old Saybrook and Waterford have received state funding for the cameras, according to data from the state Office of Policy and Management. Police cameras went live in Waterford last spring and in East Lyme in the fall.

As far as state record keeping goes, it's difficult to find out if a police department has instituted body cameras unless it has applied for various body camera grant programs administered by the policy and management office over the past decade.

According to Brian Foley, spokesman for the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, "no one keeps a list" of which towns have body cameras.

Nichole Howe, an associate accountant with OPM's Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, said the agency has no way to know which towns may have purchased cameras on their own or with other funding sources.

Old Lyme is among those towns that would not show up on OPM's list because officials did not end up applying for the 30% reimbursement offered through the state. Weber said that's because there was no money for the town in the grant program for body cameras at the time the department would have submitted the application.

The Board of Finance in October 2020 authorized $15,000 from the police budget to be allocated toward eight body cameras and associated expenses.

Howe said previous iterations of the grant program were not open to resident state trooper towns but that changed with the program that went into effect in February of last year. She said any purchases made after the police accountability was signed into law in July 2020 remain eligible for funding.

Griswold said if the money's available, the town will pursue it.

"Certainly if it hasn't been submitted and it's available, then we've got to get on it," he said.

e.regan@theday.com