The Windham County Sheriff's Office (WCSO) is attempting to change the way that local law enforcement resources are provided and how they are funded by working with the legislature to make the system more stable.
According to Sheriff Mark Anderson, the Regional Policing Initiative could look to the Legislature to create one governing body to address the needs of the 19 towns in the county that are without their own policing infrastructure. Only Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, Dover, and Wilmington have full-time police departments.
Whenever Vermont has attempted to share policing resources among municipalities in the past the system usually breaks down, Anderson said, describing a problem that he said has been documented for almost 70 years.
He noted that those who attended a series of information sessions about these potential changes were positive and optimistic about the need and curious as to how to accomplish it.
The meetings took place in Jamaica, Marlboro, Newfane, and Putney in late July and earlier this month.
"Ultimately what we're working on is approaching the Windham County legislative delegation to propose a pilot project where we can say, 'Let's actually stop studying this and talking about the changes. Let's do a practice run so that we take the things that we believe, the subject matter experts believe, will actually fix the problems that we've been talking about for decades,'" Anderson said.
Financial pressure creates crunch in resources
Some towns throughout Windham County have contracts with the sheriff's office to provide services, a decision that is made by town selectboards. Those contracts are reviewed regularly and whether a contract remains in place is subject to change.
If one town decides to end a contract and another town wants the service, Anderson said under the current structure he moves the service to the other town.
The problem, he said, comes when a town that terminated a contract reverses course and wants the service back in six or 12 months time. At that point, Anderson said, the WCSO doesn't have the funding to immediately be able to resume the service, and it takes approximately 12 months to recruit, hire, train, and deploy a new officer.
"It just becomes this game of a waitlist, of a cycle, all because the selectboards are under pressure to be diligent stewards of funding," he said.
"I need about 12 months to plan just about anything we do for any town, and they're making a decision in May or June on what they want in their next fiscal year which starts in July. I can't operate in that environment," Anderson said. "They can't operate in an environment where they're depending on services. People get frustrated, and we're just not doing the things."
Anderson hopes the Legislature can form one governing body to represent the towns in the county.
"Rather than pursue this through 19 different towns in Windham County all with 19 separate decision making processes, what we're trying to do is align this through the legislative process to say this is representative of the 19 towns through one deliberative conversation," Anderson said.
Legislators will discuss potential
On Sept. 22, Anderson will have a discussion with Windham County legislators to determine whether the concept is viable and, if so, to explore how to begin the legislative process when the new session begins in January.
Whether the change will come to pass will depend on the legislative process, Anderson said, starting with getting support from lawmakers to introduce a bill.
Even if the idea does not survive a journey through the legislative process, Anderson said he does not believe the public dialogue was in vain.
"I don't see what we've done as wasted time. I see what we've done as educating our constituents and the community to say, 'This is what to expect of the services and the government we have,'" Anderson said. "If we can't get the change made, that's not a failure, that's also a decision of the public process, so both are fine."
The meeting on Monday, Sept. 22 is scheduled to take place at the Windham County Superior Courthouse in Newfane at 5 p.m.
This News item by Brandon Canevari was written for The Commons.