JAMESTOWN – The effort to look into a possible consolidation between the Jamestown Police Department and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office will continue to move forward. That after a steering committee of various elected officials, law enforcement officials and community representatives met Thursday afternoon with representatives from the Center for Governmental Research (CGR) – a Rochester-based consulting firm.
Thursday’s meeting was the fourth such meeting of the steering committee, which received an update from CGR on the best way to move forward with drafting an Inter Municipal Agreement (IMA) between the county and the city.
CGR representatives Scott Sittig and Joseph Stefko also went over the cost and savings analysis of a gradual phase-in consolidation. Should it take place, the two said that it could take as long as 20 to 25 years to be fully implemented, primarily because officers who are currently part of the Jamestown Police Department would not be forced into becoming duputies in the Sheriff’s Department. Instead, they would only be replaced by sheriff deputies upon retirement or leaving the JPD through some other means.
Sittig said that while there may not be a large initial savings to begin with, the city could begin to see a significant savings down the road.
“When it comes to comparing these two, I said right at the beginning here, ‘is the juice worth the squeeze in terms of phasing in,’ is the city really going to reap any benefits on this?” Sittig explained. “And annually, after year one, year two and maybe even down to year three, four and five – [you’re not going to notice] not a big difference. But if somebody really wants to take a long term approach to this and really understand the impact over the long term, there really are some significant dollars that play into this.”
The CGR reps also said that much of the savings would come through post-retirement healthcare cots. Jamestown is currently required to pay for all retired officers’ healthcare through the remainder of their lives – which could be for an additional 30 years or longer after retirement. The Sheriff’s Department is required to pay for healthcare for an retired deputy for just 3 years after retirement.
MOVING FORWARD
During Thursday’s meeting, the committee agreed to move forward and begin crafting a draft IMA to present to both the city and the county, which would be done by collecting input from elected officials in both the county legislature and city council, law enforcement administrators, and members of the involved collective bargaining units. Pending City Council approval, CGR will assist with that process as well and will charge an additional $44,000. That’s on top of the $168,000 that CGR has already been paid t0 to assist with the consolidation study. All the money paid to CGR is covered through a $400,000 New York State Public Safety Grant, given to the city of Jamestown last year to look into cost savings in law enforcement.
City Council President Greg Rabb says the council will likely act on extending the contract with the consultants during its May voting session.
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