By John Bebow - October 22, 2009
If you have an emergency at your house or place of employment, do you care whether the first responder is a city police officer or a county deputy?
Michigan residents may find themselves asking that question as recession-driven budget cuts grow more acute in local communities.
At least that's the suggestion of the Citizens Research Council, as noted in a recent report about government collaboration and consolidation options in West Michigan. As the Center for Michigan has outlined, longstanding state labor laws effectively prevent the merging of neighboring police and fire departments.
But what if a cash-strapped city simply shuts down its cop shop and hires the county mounties instead?
The Macomb County seat of Mt. Clemens did just that in 2005 and realized $1.2 million in savings in the first year, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments.
"The courts ruled that this arrangement did not violate the employee protections of the Urban Cooperation Act," the Citizens Research Council noted in its recent report. "Likewise, the Oakland County Sheriff provides police protection for the cities of Clarkston, Rochester, and Rochester Hills in addition to the many townships that contract for enhanced protection. If the finances of Michigan local governments do not improve soon, more cities will be driven to investigate the financial and operational feasibility of contracting for police protection from the county sheriffs… The Kent County Sheriff should study the possibility of extending county sheriff services into any or all (core cities around Grand Rapids) in place of their police departments to prepare for any future inquiries."
3 Comments
The Cities of Clarkston and Rochester have their own police departments.
Independence Township, which makes up a great deal of the Clarkston postal zip code, is patrolled by the deputies.
This is a hot button issue that have gotten City Managers fired just for suggesting a study(Auburn Hills circa 1993).
I have a friend and his family who live in Mt. Clemens. In the year that the Sheriff has taken over from the police the crime in his neighborhood has gone from pretty much nothing to out of control. He just walked away from his house last week after a drive by shooting and a fire-bombing happened within 2 weeks on his block. Another neighbor on the same block has done the same. Is the $1.2 million in savings going to be worth it for Mt. Clemens with this crime and disinvestment happening?
Contracting with the County Sheriff office has always been a cost effective solution for providing police services. Research by Bill SInclair (PhD candidate at MSU) in the 1970s found the constracting for police shervices yielded long run cost savings to municipalities versus maintaining own department. I completed a study for Delhi Charter Township (Ingham Co) in 2008 that yielded similar results. The township contracts for 23 FT deputies from the Ingham Sheriff Department at a cost less than maintaining own department utilizing comparable township data with police departments. In addition to current savings another signficant savings in the long run is the avoidance of legacy costs.
More research and case studies are needed to support what I perceive to be another re-organizational option, the creation of public safety departments as alternatives to stand alone police and fire departments. Resistance to such arrangements is generally from fire departments not police. The more efficient utilization of human capital via cross-training and having personnel function as public safety officers maximizes time available while maintaining levels of service.
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