Companies that jump on the latest trendy technology a little too early are often stuck with the bill when it doesn’t turn out to fulfill all its promise. In Dublin, Ohio, taxpayers had to foot the bill for a K5 autonomous security robot the police department called “DubBot,” after it failed miserably at its job.

According to a report by the website Futurism, which cited a Columbus Dispatch report, DubBot helped make no arrests and issued no tickets during its less-than-a-year on the job. Or, as the department spokesperson put it, it “wasn’t meeting operational needs.”

This was determined after the city lost $67,548 on the Knightscope product. As Futurism points out, that’s approximately what an average law enforcement officer makes. (Police officers in Ohio earn an average of between $59,000 and $77,000 per year depending on experience, rank and location).

At one point, Dublin had planned to deploy two of these robots for two years, at a cost of $128,080 per robot. (It was partially reimbursed for the one that got sacked). It is to the department’s credit, then, that it at least chose not to blow even more taxpayers dollars on these things.

Futurism also reports the robot cops have a history of wasting tax money, as New York City had to retire a squad of them once they realized human police officers were required to constantly stick with them.

Yes, there are some tasks that can be completed more efficiently by a computer. But the number of such tasks is likely fewer than the tech companies would like us to believe. Perhaps employers — particularly those spending public money — are beginning to sort that out; and that lessons learned will be put into practice.