BERKELEY — As growing numbers of police departments nationwide equip their officers with cameras to provide evidence as well as monitor police conduct, Berkeley is slowly getting ready to start its own limited pilot program.

But it will be a while — officials this week could not say how long — before Berkeley joins the Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, BART, Richmond, and other Bay Area police departments in deploying cameras.

On June 28, the City Council allocated $50,000 in the fiscal 2016-17 budget to acquire cameras, and another $100,000 in associated staff costs.

Then, at a special session on July 19, the council discussed two packages of policy recommendations, one by the Police Review Commission, the other by the police department, on the use of body-worn cameras; another type, dashboard cameras, are not currently being considered.

The police department presentation included a recommendation to implement a one-year pilot program to outfit 20 patrol officers with cameras.

“This approach will allow the city to develop and roll out a program in a fiscally responsible way and give the department adequate time to transition to this technology,” Police Chief Michael Meehan reported to the council.

The July 19 special meeting adjourned without the council taking any action on camera use policy.

Nevertheless, “we are moving forward with the pilot program and have begun what we anticipate will be a lengthy procurement process for the equipment,” Berkeley police

Sgt. Andrew Frankel said this week, adding, “We anticipate procurement taking some time, so we have the benefit of time to develop policy that will be in the best interest of all involved.

“We look forward to additional collaboration with all the stakeholders.”

When the first cameras are actually deployed “depends on procurement,” Frankel said.

Several issues were raised July 19 that still need to be defined or clarified. Among them were circumstances in which officers should switch on the cameras to save recordings, and what discretion they might have; exact definitions of the use of force; and situations in which cameras perhaps should be turned off for privacy reasons — an example was domestic violence incidents.

Also whether detectives should also wear the cameras; whether officers will be able to view their own recording before making a report; what would be disclosed, and what would be redacted, under Public Record Act requests; and whether the PRC’s access to recordings should be the same as, or greater than, the public’s.

Frankel said there is no timetable yet for setting policy.

“We anticipate procurement taking some time so we have the benefit of time to develop policy that will be in the best interest of all involved,” Frankel said. “We look forward to additional collaboration with all the stakeholders.”

Contact Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760. Follow him at Twitter.com/tomlochner.