By Lawrence Budd
Dayton Daily News
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Ohio — Miami and Butler townships are considering merging police departments after levy tax requests were rejected.
Trustees in two Montgomery County townships have joined a growing number of elected officials in Ohio exploring the sharing of police services.
Miami and Butler townships are in the early stages of studying the formation of joint police districts to save costs, following the rejection of levy tax requests in November to fund their local police departments.
“It’s really the future of local government. You’re going to see more and more of it,” said Bill Brock, city manager in Monroe, a Butler County city that runs a police district through a contract with Lemon Twp.
Outside Ohio, police districts exist in a variety of forms and locations. In Pennsylvania, the Upper Perk Police District handles police services for the boroughs of Pennburg and Greenville. In Kentucky, Highland Heights and Southgate, two cities near the Ohio River, share police services.
In Ohio, the recent push for shared government services has been sparked by cuts in state and federal funding, reductions in income tax collections and failure to pass income tax levies.
Gov. John Kasich has called for local governments to regionalize services. Ohio Auditor David Yost lists shared service success stories on his department’s website.
Monroe is one of the few Ohio cities in a joint police district. But communities around Dayton, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron and Columbus are looking at sharing some, if not all, police services, with neighboring governments.
“We’re open to everything,” Butler Twp. trustee Mike Lane said, noting the township was already sharing fire service with Huber Heights.
In Butler Twp., Lane said the board of trustees is faced with considering cost-cutting alternatives again after failure of a levy for an additional continuous 3 mills for police service in the Nov. 6 election.
Already the trustees have talked about contracting for the service with Clayton or Huber Heights, said Lane, also a police officer in Englewood.
“We’d be giving up control and paying someone else to get the service,” Lane said. “You’ve got to be careful you’re not going to dilute your own service.”
Butler Twp. already shares fire services with Vandalia, but Lane said combining police departments comes with additional obstacles.
Combining police departments requires a joining of local laws and sharing of jurisdiction and arrest authority, Lane said. In addition to better services, joined departments can save tax dollars.
“You might have benefits in delivery of services or efficiencies in capital purchases. But certainly personnel is your biggest cost,” Lane said.
While hoping to convince voters to approve additional levies, trustees in Butler and Miami townships also are weighing the virtues of consolidating their police departments with nearby cities or contracting with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
“With everything going on with our police department, we need to look at restructuring,” said Miami Twp. trustee president Mike Nolan, a former chief deputy for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
Miami Twp.'s five-year, 5-mill police levy request was rejected on Nov. 6.
Nolan said one step he was considering involved consolidating the township’s police command staff, much like the township and Miamisburg did through creation of the Miami Valley Fire District, while maintaining firefighter or police officer staffing.
Nolan said a district could also include another neighboring city, West Carrollton.
“We have not heard of this idea before nor been contacted by anyone from the township. I will have to take it up with the city council,” West Carrollton City Manager Brad Townsend said in an email.
Miamisburg City Manager Keith Johnson said the city council still was busy merging its fire departments with Miami Twp.
“I have not had any formal discussion with the township about this and as such, I doubt I would discuss this with city council. We are just wrapping up the first year of the fire district and I’m not sure if council would want to take this on,” Johnson said in an email.
Miami Twp. resident Dale Bennett said he preferred keeping the two departments separate, but favored a joint district over contracting with the Montgomery County Sheriff ‘s Office.
“I would like to see the two police departments preserved first,” said Ben-nett.
The city of Green in Summit County estimates $1 million in annual savings since contracting with the Summit County Sheriff ‘s Office, according to Yost’s website.
Near Canton, the city of Canal Fulton and Lawrence Twp. were awarded a Local Government Innovation Fund grant through the Ohio Development Services Agency in January to study the creation of a joint police district.
Police agencies around Ohio have developed regional dispatch operations.
Formed by six Cleveland suburbs, the Suburban Police Anti-crime Network (SPAN) shares SWAT costs and a radio network, as well as a bomb squad and special traffic crash response unit. Together the communities are better able to afford expensive or high-tech equipment and win grant awards, said Gene Rowe, SPAN chairman and police chief in Richmond Heights.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.