Regional police force eyed
LOWER FREDERICK >> A regional police force is being considered for three townships and a borough in the Perkiomen Valley.
A public hearing on the state study that looks at two options for regional policing in Lower Frederick, Upper Frederick, Perkiomen townships and Schwenksville borough will be held Wednesday, Dec. 5, at Perkiomen Valley Middle School West, at 220 Big Road in Zieglerville. The hearing begins at 7 p.m. The purpose of the meeting is to present the details of the study to the public. In addition, residents will have the opportunity to comment and ask questions,
according to a posting on the Upper Frederick Township website.
“Residents of the Township are encouraged to attend the meeting to hear from the professionals who prepared the study,” officials said.
None of the municipalities are bound by the results of the study and may choose to join together, or not.
The study was completed last month by the Governor’s Center for Local Government Services and recommends a full-time department for all four municipalities with 18 officers, two staff, 10 vehicles and a budget of $2.6 million.
That force, if implemented, would serve a population of 18,897 in 26.37 square miles, 106 miles of roadway at a cost of $139 per resident per year.
“If not, the next best option would be the joining of the three smaller municipalities, to create a smaller, but functional regional police department to serve those three municipalities,” the study concluded.
The three-municipality department would have 10 officers, one staff member, six vehicles and a budget of $1.4 million.
The smaller force, if implemented, would exclude Perkiomen Township and serve a population of 9,758 in 18.95 square miles, with 69.7 miles of road at a per capita cost of $149 per year.
In both scenarios, patrol officers would be paid about $85 per hour.
Currently, of the four municipalities, only Lower Frederick has its own police department, which has four members, a chief, a corporal, an officer and a traffic safety officer.
The 2018 budgeted cost for this department is $599,536, according to the budget posted on the township website.
Lower Frederick Police Chief Paul Maxey is paid $96,481 and the salary of the remaining three personnel adds up to $258,138 according to the budget.
There were 78 reportable crimes in Lower Frederick in 2017, according to the report. No crime statistics for the other three municipalities were available.
So the study used a International Association of Chiefs of Police standard of 550 calls for service per 1,000 residents in formulating its forecasts for police service needs in the region. It also used the Lower Frederick
numbers as a sample and applied it to the other three municipalities, concluding the region has about six crimes per week in all four municipalities.
The other three municipalities rely on Pennsylvania State Police coverage but, as Schwenksville officials noted on the borough website, “the Pennsylvania Legislature has been considering legislation that would begin to charge municipalities for State Police Services without expanding coverage or increasing services provided.”
As a result, those three municipalities could soon end up paying for police services they now receive at no additional cost.
Regional police departments, “if properly managed,” typically “save an average of 24 percent when compared to traditional departments,” according to the study.
According to the study, other advantages of a regional police department include the elimination of the need for part-time police officers, increased patrol coverage, fewer jurisdictional conflicts, improved recruiting of quality personnel, and the services of at least one detective.
As the Perkiomen Valley region grows, “growing cultural diversity, countywide drug enforcement issues, growing regional and county-wide traffic problems, school district concerns, fiscal constraints and other new issues have raised challenges for municipalities and their police departments,” the study notes.
If a regional force is created here, the municipalities that join will join more than 300 municipalities that are participating in the regional or contractual policing across Pennsylvania, the study notes.
Oversight of a regional force would be outside the control of any one municipality and instead be undertaken by a police commission comprised of elected officials from each of the municipalities participating, according to the report.
If all four municipalities participate, the study recommends using the current Lower Frederick Police Station off Route 73 as the headquarters for the regional force. Because the region is only 26 square miles, the report considers a substation to be unnecessary.
Without reliable crime statistics, the report notes that there are several methodologies used to divide the cost of a regional police force among those participating, but recommends using population as the primary driver, at least until a history of crime statistics suggests otherwise.
Using this population formula, a four-municipality regional force would cost Lower Frederick $681,356; Upper Frederick $497,914; Schwenksville $183,442 and Perkiomen $1,257,888, according to the report’s calculations.
The smaller, three-municipality regional force would cost Lower Frederick $725,175; Upper Frederick $522,126 and Schwenksville $203,049, according to the report’s calculations.
“It should also be noted that while the report quantifies the cost of providing full time local police services to each municipality, it does not quantify the tax impact for raising the funds to pay for the services. That impact needs to be explored and quantified by each individual municipality,” Schwenksville officials posted on the borough website.
The report “strongly” recommends the four-municipality force, arguing it will provide more extensive police services to a larger population in the most efficient manner.
It also points to a U.S. Dept. of Justice study that found at 996, Pennsylvania has the highest number of local police departments in the United States, even more than Texas which is six times larger and has double the population.
“Over 83 percent of Pennsylvania’s full-time police departments have less than 10 officers, while 90 percent has less than 25,” the report notes.
It also pointed to a 2007 study by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development that focused on a Cambria County regional force and concluded that “the regional police department was providing a higher level of service at a significant lower cost.”
The Dec. 5 public meeting marks the start of public discussion of these options.
“There will be an additional multi-municipal public hearing in the spring and Schwenksville Borough encourages residents of the borough to submit their written comments and questions to info@schwenksville-pa.org at any time. Additional opportunity for public comment will also be provided at future borough council meetings,” officials posted on Schwenksville’s website.