Lansford Borough Council on Wednesday deferred discussion regarding police hiring to a special meeting next Tuesday, when it plans to conduct a midyear budget review.

Council President Bruce Markovich opened the meeting saying they had an executive session immediately before to discuss personnel, specifically police personnel.

“We’re going to have a special meeting on Tuesday to further discuss this, and hopefully, we’re going to make some decisions on moving the police department,” he said.

Council has been on track for hiring more full-time police officers and in the midst of a search for a new police chief, but last week discussions arose regarding police budget overages putting new hires in jeopardy.

Council wants to take a deeper dive into the police budget to see if it can reallocate funds to move ahead with hiring at least one full-time officer this year, Markovich said after the meeting.

“We have to figure out exactly what it’s going to cost to put one (officer) on,” he said, adding that he’d like to hire two full-time officers.

“But we need to break it down into what it is going to cost us from now until the end of the year to put people on,” Markovich said. “We have to get that number. That’s going to tell us if we can do one or two (officers.)”

The borough has two full-time police officers, five part-time officers and no police chief. Kyle Woodward, who served as chief for just over a year, departed at the end of March.

Residents again raised concerns regarding police protection. Last week, issues regarding noise, drugs, parking, harassment, motor vehicle violations and lack of actions by some officers.

Resident Tommy Vadyak told council to find the money in the budget to hire police, pointing to issues in his block in the past week.

“This weekend, up on Abbott Street in our block, they blocked either end of the street to set off fireworks, and then we had a guy walking around up there with an AR-15, a side arm and drinking,” he said.

“Today, there was guy walking down the street to one of the drug houses packing a side arm,” Vadyak said. “Last night, we had a fist fight up there, which the police hauled him away.

“We need police. We need more of them,” he said. “It’s scary when you see what’s going on up there. It’s not only our block, it’s other blocks, too. Our block is like South Phllly. We need more police.”

Vadyak also questioned an agenda item to discuss with the public why the borough could not hire more police, which was requested by Councilwoman Michele Bartek.

Bartek, who chairs public safety, told the Times News before the meeting that she wanted the discussion because the police budget had shrunk significantly from when she was mayor several years ago.

She wanted to know where the money for additional police protection went, she said. That agenda item was withdrawn Wednesday and deferred to the special meeting next week.

Resident Rose Mary Cannon, a former councilwoman, said the borough needs to adjust the budget and “with a little ingenuity” fund the borough’s police department.

The borough is facing a more than $70,000 overage in the police budget for part-time officers, and Cannon, who has been reviewing the numbers, said that it’s over $100,000 now.

Cannon felt that the borough could work with the numbers and provide a functioning police department and police chief, and residents would likely be happy to pay more in taxes for the service.

“We cannot continue like this. Complaint after complaint,” she said. “Our department was never like this. We never had the complaints that we had about the police department.”

Given the complaints, resident Denise Leibensperger asked if the borough’s officer in charge could attend meetings to address residents’ concerns, and Markovich said council couldn’t mandate his attendance, but the mayor could ask him.

Mayor Hugh Vrablic said that he would ask Sgt. Shawn Nunemacher, who serves as the officer in charge. Nunemacher is also among the candidates to be the next police chief.