What does Easthampton Spend on Technology?

Published June 2, 2026

Easthampton’s official budget plan does not explain the technology expenses beyond high-level categories like “Software” and “Equipment,” so I filed a public records request to get more granular data. Thanks to Karin Camihort, Easthampton’s IT director for fulfilling my public records requests in one business day.

The city provides the data as PDFs, but I’ve converted the data to a format for easy web viewing below.

Observations

Without the override, police will cancel a $42k/yr software contract

If the buget override fails, the police will cancel their $42,250/year subscription to CS Pro. This is the biggest difference between the two budgets.

Curiously, the without override budget calls for the city to keep paying $1,650/yr for a CS Pro add-on, which is probably a mistake.

Increased spending on Flock Safety automated license plate readers

Flock Safety is a company that makes automated license plate readers.

If you’re not familiar with Flock, it’s a company that makes traffic cameras that record and track the movements of all cars it. It connects the data it collects to Flock’s nationwide network, meaning that government agencies can track a car’s movement anywhere in the country.

ICE has used Flock data in its operations. Last year, Texas deputies used Flock data to track a woman across state lines because authorities suspected she left Texas to receive an abortion.

The Shoestring reported in 2023 that Easthampton had begun using Flock Safety products, but the 2026 budget states $0 in Flock spending, so the city potentially canceled its contract and is now renewing it.

I have filed separate requests for more details about Easthampton’s planned contracts with Flock.

Police spend $16k/yr on body cameras

I was surprised to see that the city spends $14,500/year on body camera equipment and then another $1,205/year on software for those cameras. I had assumed the cameras themselves were a one-time cost, but it appears the city has to keep paying for them year after year.

Significant single-department expenses

A surprising amount of the technology budget is dedicated to single departments.

$63,430 (18%) of the city’s software budget is exclusively for the police. That also means that when you look at the city’s $4M, it excludes $81,760 in technology costs that are solely for the police.

Website costs increase 160%

Both plans call for a $20k increase (160%) in the cost of running the city website relative to 2026.

I’ve filed separate public data requests for more detailed information about these costs.

Loading technology budget line items...

Corrections

If you see any errors, please let me know.

Sources

The source PDFs are available here:

Converted to CSV

If you’d like to explore this data as CSVs, I’ve provided the extracted tables here:

Full 2027 Budget Explorer