Dallas Township Supervisor Bill Grant discusses police regionalization at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
Margaret Roarty | Times Leader
Police regionalization talks in Dallas Township are still ongoing, and Supervisor Bill Grant hopes to give residents an answer by the end of the year on whether the police department will remain independent.
Grant said at the board of supervisors’ regular meeting Tuesday the next step is to discuss how the organization would be structured with officials from Dallas Borough and Kingston Township.
“It’ll no longer be a situation where Dallas Township would be controlling the police. It would be a new entity that would be established to control the three departments,” he told the board and attendees at Tuesday’s meeting.
Grant also plans to meet with officers from Dallas Township to speak with them about their thoughts on police regionalization.
“It’s important to see what their thoughts are on this because they’re the ones who will have to live with this if we decide to regionalize or not,” he said.
When asked by a resident if the township had identified the pros and cons of regionalization, he said one of the biggest concerns remains cost.
“Our budget for police is roughly $2.1 million, and the numbers are coming in a little higher than that, so we’re looking at that,” said Grant.
Another concern is coverage. Officials will have to decide if the number of officers in the department is enough to cover the increased area.
Jackson and Lehman townships dropping out of regionalization talks actually helped, he said, because it decreased the coverage area.
“The fact that they left the group has compacted that a bit,” Grant explained.
More updates on regionalization are expected at the Oct. 6 supervisors’ meeting.
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