Towns will share some police services

Three boros reject full merger of police forces

BY SHARON LEFF Staff Writer

Declan O'Scanlon Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon Assemblyman After reviewing a report on the feasibility of shared police services in Rumson, Fair Haven and Little Silver, the three boroughs have decided to incorporate certain aspects of the report but will not enter into a full merger at this time.

“While a merger may be feasible and have the potential to result in a gross savings to all three towns, upon further analysis we do not agree that a significant net savings would result,” a letter sent to Rumson residents from the mayor and council states.

Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl said the towns agreed to share some police functions like communications, use the same call reporting data and do joint purchasing when possible, among other things.

“At this point each town will keep their autonomy,” Ekdahl said.

The letter to residents also recommends that the three towns form a Join Management Committee that would meet on a regular basis with the respective chiefs of police in an effort to continue to improve communication among the three departments, and to explore cost-saving opportunities and the possible expansion of mutual aid.

Michael Halfacre Mayor, Fair Haven Michael Halfacre Mayor, Fair Haven Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-12th District) said the Two River Regional Police Study conducted by Patriot Consulting Group Inc., Eatontown, did not recommend a merger right now.

“The Patriot Study did not call for merger. It called for, we don’t [merge], but we start working together to collect data the same way,” said O’Scanlon, a former Little Silver councilman.

He added that the report only cost each town about $800. The rest was covered by grant money.

He said the report had two main purposes.

“The first was maintain or increase the quality of police services … to three towns,” he said. “Second was try to save money and deliver those services more efficiently.”

A call to Little Silver Mayor Suzanne Castleman was not returned by press time. However, O’Scanlon said that borough adopted a similar resolution Sept. 22 in favor of working together to achieve cost savings but did not endorse a full merger of the police forces at this time.

John Ekdahl Mayor, Rumson John Ekdahl Mayor, Rumson Fair Haven Mayor Michael Halfacre said the borough adopted a resolution that was identical to the one Little Silver adopted.

“We feel maybe the report did not justify a full merger or moving toward a full merger at this time, but certainly there are savings that can be accomplished through smaller steps, and we fully support going forward with the smaller steps to try and find some savings within the three departments,” Halfacre said.

Ekdahl said the study was started about a year ago and the towns received the final report about five weeks ago.

He said the report included multiple phases, but the borough was not ready to accept the second phase, which Ekdahl said would have been three or four years down the line and would have included a fullblown merger with one police chief, one department and one headquarters.

“Basically, Fair Haven and Rumson rejected the notion of phase two, which was a full merger, but we did accept some parts of phase one,” he said.

According to the letter sent to residents, the total gross savings identified in the report is speculative and based on reducing the number of police officers employed by the three towns from 46 to 40. According to the letter, the annual gross savings would be $192 to $256 per Rumson household based on 2,600 households, with no guarantee of better service.

Ekdahl said one of the reasons Rumson did not want to merge was a fear of increasing the tax rate to the residents of the borough.

“The one big reason is, we went into an agreement with Fair Haven in the ’50s when we regionalized our high school, even though we both send the same number [of students] to the high school. In the ’60s the Legislature changed the funding formula for the high school — instead of perstudent basis, which would be 50/50, [it was] equalized by real estate value,” he said.

Ekdahl said this year Rumson is paying 72 percent of the high school budget.

“We were fearful if we put together this police force to save taxpayers money, the Legislature would do something similar,” he said. “If they did something similar, the tax rate to our residents would go up.”

He said the governing body also didn’t think that the overall savings would be worth the potential for reduced police services.

“We didn’t think there was enough cost saving to do it,” he said.

The letter explains to residents that the overall gross savings would be limited in the event that more than 40 police officers are required. Also, the report states that a new central police facility is required, and none of the three towns has a facility large enough to house a merged police force.

The merger would also create administrative needs that currently do not exist.

“The added cost of employing civilian employees would significantly offset any gross savings,” the letter states.

Halfacre said a lot of the technology used by the departments can be shared, and therefore the cost can be spread out. He also said the borough would consider a merger sometime in the future.

“Ten years from now we may have for all intents and purpose some kind of a regionalized police department,” he said. “The problem is, everybody is so concerned with what the police department is going to look like in 2018. I’m concerned with what the police department and what our budget will look like in 2009.”

At a July Little Silver meeting on the

merger proposal, Fair Haven Police Chief Darryl Breckenridge said the three chiefs disagreed with the sharing of the three services.

“We think that we would lose manpower, we couldn’t maintain our staff, which really makes no sense at all, and we are strongly against that and we will be till the end,” he said in July.

Rumson Councilwoman Joan DeVoe said the council plans to approach anything they undertake with a great deal of study before it is established in writing or any conclusions are formed.

“We will explore cost-saving possibilities [such as] technology, equipment, communication, networks and expansion of mutual aid with great care and deliberation with the interest and concern for our residents in mind at all times,” she said.