NEW ALBANY — One of the top law officials in Floyd County supports pairing policing efforts with New Albany for a myriad of reasons, but one tops his list.
Ninety-two cops working together can get more done.
“You would have a lot more officers on the street at any given moment, and you wouldn’t run into the shortages that you do now,” Floyd County Sheriff Darrell Mills said.
“You combine [police] services, and it gives you more manpower to utilize and target your high crime areas.”
Though the move would ultimately have to be decided by a voter referendum, Mills supports a merger of the sheriff’s department and the New Albany Police Department.
Law enforcement officials are eying what transpires in Vanderburgh County, Mills said. In 2012, voters there will decide whether to merge Evansville with Vanderburgh County.
If voters go for the change, they would be charged with electing new local leadership in 2014 to guide what would be called the Evansville-Vanderburgh Combined Government.
Police and fire costs combine for more than 80 percent of New Albany’s budget, and a shortfall of $1.7 million in public safety spending remains unaccounted for in the city’s 2010 general fund.
With less money being received from property taxes, Mills said a combined city and county police force could save money as it would reduce overtime pay.
And a nudge to public safety coffers doesn’t appear likely anytime soon, as the Local Option Income Tax, or LOIT, was defeated by the Floyd County Council in 2009 and hasn’t been proposed for another vote.
“I think the state is telling us, you know what your wants and needs are, you figure out what it is, and you figure out how to pay for it,” Mills said.
But the state push — primarily from Gov. Mitch Daniels — to consolidate public services is the reason New Albany City Council President John Gonder said his “knee-jerk” reaction to a merger is opposition.
“I don’t want to be led around by what [Daniels] thinks local government should be,” Gonder said.
Daniels has been a proponent of consolidating school districts and library systems, as well as cutting the number of elected leaders at the county level. Those are recommendations also called for in the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform’s Kernan-Shepard report.
But local governments are novel and shouldn’t be generalized especially from the state level, Gonder said.
With New Albany being the largest municipality in the hypothetical merged area, Gonder said it wouldn’t be an even playing field when considering what each entity has to offer.
“It kind of seems like we’d be giving up more than the county would be giving up, and in reality we have more to protect in terms of fiscal assets,” he said.
“We’ve got to represent the city, and I don’t think the needs and the desires of the city and county residents necessarily jive.”
The different aspects of policing the county as opposed to the city keep NAPD Chief Todd Bailey from supporting a full police merger at this time.
“The needs of the citizens within the inner city are different than the needs of the people that are in the more rural suburban area,” Bailey said.
One set of residents’ needs doesn’t trump those of another segment of the population, he added. But the sheriff’s department is more akin to policing county while the NAPD implements strategies specific to city enforcement, Bailey said.
Mills said it’s not just about New Albany, as he believes the sheriff’s department should already be providing police coverage for the other municipalities in the county.
There are some restrictions keeping that from happening on a full-time basis, including laws that prohibit New Albany or county police from enforcing town ordinances in other municipalities.
But there are joint efforts already in place — including the New Albany-Floyd County Animal Shelter — and proposals being considered to further unite the city and county.
The city council could soon vote on moving forward with a plan to combine 9-1-1 dispatch centers. Floyd and New Albany officials met last week to discuss reducing two call stations to one, with most leaders supporting a merger if it saves the city and county money.
Floyd County Commissioner Steve Bush has championed the idea, and said the city and county could begin realizing a reduction in emergency communications expenses within a few years of a merger after initial equipment costs are paid.
The New Albany Fire Department has already expressed its willingness to share a federal grant with the county to help foot some of the preliminary expenses a merger would entail.
Mills and Bush have also promised the city that Floyd will include New Albany in its portion of a potential federal award for emergency communications if received by the county.
Mills said the federal funding had been earmarked in a prior Congressional budget, but the county must now seek the award again as it was not distributed.
Bush said he’s in favor of exploring other avenues to work with the city to save money through partnership if the 9-1-1 merger is a success.
“Hopefully, we can get this done, then maybe we can look at the police and sheriff’s departments,” said Bush, who is a NAPD detective.
Bailey said he wants more information on merging 9-1-1 dispatch centers, but added that he’s generally supportive of the proposal.
“Obviously saving money is important to me,” Bailey said.
If county and city police combined, Mills said the sheriff should be in charge of the department. But before being accused of trying to promote his own position, Mills pointed to the fact that term limits will keep him from seeking re-election in 2014.
Indiana law prohibits sheriff’s from serving more than eight years in any 12-year span.
Instead, Mills said his reasoning is because a sheriff is an elected official, while a chief is appointed by the mayor.
While merging the city and county is an issue that will likely not surface in the near future, Bush said departments such as stormwater and planning and zoning could be combined in the interim.
The city and county already pay the same company for stormwater fees, Bush said. He added he’s discussed merging planning and zoning operations with Mayor Doug England, and it’s an idea that could be weighed in 2011.
“There’s ways we can look at saving costs,” he said.
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