NEWFANE-Windham County is home to 23 municipalities and a hodgepodge of law enforcement coverage.
The towns of Brattleboro, Dover, and Wilmington operate municipal police departments, as does the village of Bellows Falls. Fifteen other towns contract with the Windham County Sheriff's Department to provide policing services; the rest rely on the Vermont State Police. A handful elect or employ town constables.
Sheriff Mark Anderson of the Windham County Sheriff's Office (WCSO), believes the existing system leaves rural communities without equitable and consistent policing services.
Anderson is proposing a county-wide approach called The Rural Policing Initiative to fill in service gaps and better meet community needs.
Under the pilot program, individual municipal contracting with the WCSO would end. Instead, the office would provide law enforcement services across the whole county, excepting towns that operate municipal police departments.
"So what we would like to do, again, for approximately the same amount of money as what we currently raise for law enforcement through town contracts, pass that through the county tax and eliminate the need for contracts," he said.
As proposed, Anderson's regional policing model would be funded through county taxes. The goal is to streamline services, reduce costs, and improve accessibility.
Anderson held the fifth public meeting on the draft proposal on Sept. 22 in the Windham County Superior Courthouse.
"Under current law, only towns and the state are charged with providing law enforcement services," Anderson said. "Our experience is that towns and our constituents expect more. The existing system is generally piecemeal and patchwork, leaving people frustrated."
The WCSO is authorized to deliver civil process, transport prisoners, and assist people retrieving their property in relief-from-abuse order cases.
The office is permitted to contract with individual towns for services.
When a town contracts with the WCSO, individual selectboards negotiate custom coverage. One town might contract for 15 hours per week for a deputy to conduct speed stops, while another may contract for 40 hours per week and a longer list of services.
Anderson developed the regional model over three years and plans to present it to the Legislature in January. The lawmakers must amend the current law to enable Windham County to fund and provide law enforcement services.
"We haven't been doing anything for 70 years, we know what not doing anything is," he said. "We know what it feels like. We know the frustration that it causes people."
The frustration may be Anderson's as much as the public's.
When someone picks up the phone asking for help, it shouldn't matter if they understand which entity provides which piece of law enforcement.
"And so when they get told, 'I'm sorry, we can't help you with fill-in-the-blank,' that doesn't work. It's not solving their needs," he said.
"I believe, from the bottom of my heart, people deserve access to public safety services when they call for help and when they need help," he said.
A new regional model
According to Anderson, the regional model will:
1. Control costs and streamline governmental systems. Anderson is proposing a governing body comprising the county's selectboard chairs. This group would develop a budget and pass it on to the county's assistant judges, who would add the number to the existing county budget.
2. Shift costs from the current WCSO contract system to the county budget. Anderson said that an amount raised through the county-level budget equivalent to what his municipal contracts raised in FY2025 could provide services countywide. In FY2025, the WCSO's contracts totaled $725,000, or approximately $17 per resident.
3. Create a system larger than one town can create alone, while allowing each town to maintain its sense of identity and control taxes. Anderson said a town that operates its own police department would have its portion of funding returned.
In a press release, the WCSO wrote, "The push for regionalization is not new. Numerous studies commissioned over several decades by the Legislature, the State, and independent researchers have consistently recommended regional law enforcement services as a necessary step forward for Vermont's rural communities."
Amending state law
Under state statute, counties in Vermont possess limited powers and authority. For example, counties cannot raise taxes to fund law enforcement.
According to Assistant Judge Lamont Barnett, current taxes fund a county-level budget of approximately $1 million. Half of the money goes toward maintaining the county courthouse in Newfane. The other half goes toward the WCSO's expenses unrelated to law enforcement, such as station maintenance.
When asked by an audience member how to fund the Rural Policing Initiative, Barnett responded that in his opinion, raising money through taxes on each town's Grand List is the most efficient funding model.
Former Windham County Sen. Jeanette White has endorsed Anderson's initiative. She said amending state law to enable the pilot program would be a relatively small ask.
As White described it, to move forward, the pilot program requires a minor amendment to state statute permitting Windham County to fund law enforcement.
The Vermont State Police is the default agency authorized to deliver policing to towns without a municipal department or another service like the WCSO.
The Westminster VSP barracks serves Windham and Windsor counties.
According to Anderson, the Westminster barracks has seven troopers covering 1,500 square miles on a typical day.
Anderson believes his regional proposal would improve deputy response times because he could station them in geographically strategic areas.
Anderson feels Vermont's multilayered approach to law enforcement leaves residents confused about which entity will respond in a crisis - and, for rural towns, the even bigger question is often when.
He said the contracting process also drops a business incentive into his decision-making.
Positive conversations
Anderson said conversations with members of law enforcement, towns, and state agencies have remained positive, though the Scott administration has made it clear that it will not support programs that raise costs.
He said that if the Legislature passes the proposal, the pilot could launch in 2027.
Anderson said that in the big picture, towns lack the capacity to do what they've been charged with. He said that regionalization might be the key to solving that challenge.
He stressed that the proposal focuses on improving the law enforcement system, but he hopes that the pilot program can serve as a test for other systems.
"We need to test it somewhere where it's going to be successful, and I believe that is here in Windham County," he said. "Based on the support we have and the resources my department has, I just see us aptly positioned over other counties."
Anderson asked people who support the project to contact their representatives.
A version of this story appeared in The Deerfield Valley News, The Commons' sister newspaper.
This News item by Olga Peters originally appeared in The Deerfield Valley News and was republished in The Commons with permission.