While reading the front page story in Wednesday’s edition about Ossian’s struggles with attracting and keeping police officers, I could not help but recall some remarks by then-State Rep. Jeff Espich and think about how easily this problem might be solved.
Well, it wouldn’t be easy — while there would be logistics and people issues to work out, the biggest obstacles would be political (which may or may not include such things as the state constitution).
I do not recall exactly when and in what forum the veteran Uniondale-based legislator made this observation and asked this question, but I think it was during the local uproar over the state closing the license bureau branch in Ossian a number of years ago.
Why is it, he wondered allowed, that people say they want the government to operate as efficiently as possible, yet they insist on keeping an office open that was seeing less and less utilization as more people renewed their plates and driver’s licenses online? And while we’re at, he continued (privately, he subsequently confirmed — read on) why, in a rural community our size, do we have three or four separate police departments? Wouldn’t it be much more efficient with one?
Such a radical idea.
About two weeks ago, Bluffton Police Chief Kyle Randall said the “police carousel” was put in motion when an Ossian recruit undergoing training at Ossian’s expense decided to take a better paying open position with the Bluffton force. His point: Young officers are increasingly finding the grass greener, leaving the smaller forces for the county’s larger ones. Meanwhile, Wells County Sheriff Scott Holliday has lamented about the drop in the number of applicants for open positions.
So the obvious question is: Why are we competing against ourselves amongst a shrinking pool of applicants?
The prospect of consolidating small-town police forces in rural communities was never one of Jeff Espich’s campaign promises. However, he said this week, the idea makes ever more sense today.
“I know people don’t like change, and I know people like the idea of having their own police force in their community,” he opined, “but I think we would find we would be better served with — overall — more qualified officers protecting us more efficiently and more effectively.”
There would be one phone number to call for non-emergency issues, the county could almost certainly be covered by fewer total officers and administrative duties would be consolidated.
It made sense to me more than 10 years ago when Jeff made this observation, and I think it deserves some attention now, especially after seeing my property tax bills almost double in just four years. The devil is in the details of course, but the time seems ripe for some initial discussions about what’s possible under current state law, and/or what the legislature might need to do to give local government more options.
This is not a novel idea. We have experienced consolidation in almost every aspect of our lives. We lament the loss of our local mom-and-pop stores but enjoy the benefits of selection and price at our local Walmart. And you would think — Republicans being Republicans — the prospect of a smaller, more efficient government service that a former veteran Republican state leader believes would likely be at least as effective, if not more effective, would be of interest to our local leaders. It is also a common conservative mantra that government ought to operate more like a business, at least as much as it can. The world is consolidating, government needs to look for opportunities to do the same.
“You know, if we want to suggest a really radical idea,” I said to Jeff in our conversation this week, “let’s suggest that since there is no such thing as a defined-benefit retirement plan in the private sector, government retirement plans need to also convert to the 401(k) plans the rest of us have.”
Not likely, or something like that, Jeff replied.
“Businesses just cannot afford (those plans)” I said.
“Neither can the government,” the former chair of the House Ways and Means Committee said, “but they do it anyway.”
But I digress.
The idea of a single police force in any county in Indiana is not something that would happen quickly. It would take years, and the public would need to be educated about it as well, Jeff said.
It seems this is as good a time as any for some folks from Ossian, Bluffton and the county to begin to put their heads together and at least discuss this. Taxes are rising enough on their own without adding “more competitive” — i.e. “higher” — wages and benefits to lure officers away from each other.
miller@news-banner.com
