Police Expansion
A Success
In Woodstock
By M. D. Drysdale

In trying to find a more equitable way to spread the burden of paying for its police force, Randolph might look just 25 miles away.

The town of Woodstock has just completed its first year in an experimental new arrangement in which Woodstock Town has entered into a contract with Woodstock Village to receive police services.

And according to Police Chief Byron Kelly, as well as a feature article in the Vermont Standard, the plan seems to have worked well and will probably be renewed when the 18-month pilot period comes to an end.

The contract expands police services—but only limited services—to the entire town of Woodstock.

Until a year ago, Woodstock was in a situation similar to Randolph’s. Police services were provided—and paid for—only within the Village area, while the town outside the village had to call the state police or county sheriffs.

Woodstock’s experiment was a response to some of the same quandaries that have brought Town Manager Peter Butterfield to ask the selectboard to consider expanding the police force to the whole town, instead of just the village police district.

An important reason for the change, according to the "Standard," was pressure from Town residents for more police coverage. Calls to other police agencies often did not bring a quick response, and in addition, rural roads were not patrolled for speeding.

The police force saw the same problem from the other side of the thin blue line: They were frustrated not to be able to help with a law enforcement problem just because it occurred outside the village.

"It kills me to have to tell someone just a mile down the road that we can’t respond," Chief Kelly told the Standard.

At the same time, many of the objections to the contract idea also mirrored objections being vocally aired in Randolph. Citizens outside Woodstock Village didn’t want to pay higher taxes in order to support the police force. Also, they didn’t think the rural part of Woodstock needed (or wanted) the same level of policing as the Village.

The contract arrangement was an attempt to meet this objection. The Town of Woodstock does not purchase full police coverage—just 40 hours of patrolling per week. What is key, however, is that any resident within the town of Woodstock is now assured of a response from the local police force.

In the first 12 months, 700 calls to police came from outside the village—exactly 25% of the total of 2800.

Like Randolph, Woodstock has a commercial district just outside of the former policing district. Some 50% of the out-of-village calls went to that West Woodstock area.

To pay for the new services, Woodstock residents who live outside of the Village will pay about $230,000 for the next 12 months, if the contract is renewed. That includes the extra patrolling plus 20% of the fixed costs of running the department—as well as 50% of the salaries of the police chief and top administrator during weekdays.

The police force expanded from five full-time-equivalents to six and a half, according to Chief Kelly. It also added a cruiser.

The overall budget of the Woodstock police force will go from $550,000 to about $640,000, Kelly said.

(Randolph budgeted $427,000 for police services this year.)

Taxes on Town residents increased by about four cents ($41 on a $100,000 home), while taxes for Village residents decreased by about five cents ($50 on the same home).

Chief Kelly, Selectboard Chair Bruce Gould, and Town Manager Phil Swanson were happy with the results of the experiment, according to the Standard.

"It’s worked out better than we could have expected," the paper quoted Swanson as saying. "People are asking why didn’t we think of this plan before?"

Hutchinson Intrigued

Asked whether the Woodstock police contract could be a model for Randolph, Selectboard Chair Jim Hutchinson was intrigued.

He was particularly impressed that Woodstock Village had contracted only a limited amount of police time to Woodstock Town.

"That’s exactly the kind of thing we could think about," he said.

People outside the Police District have made it clear that they don’t feel a need for the same policing level as the district receives, Hutchinson delcared.

"I keep hearing that the needs are just completely different," he said.

He cautioned, however, that there’s an important difference between Woodstock and Randolph. Woodstock never merged its village and town, and its village runs the police district. In Randolph the Police District is actually a part of the overall town government.

Currently, there is no way to impose a separate tax on taxpayers outside of the police district, he said.

Woodstock Town Manager Phil Swanson noted that in order to bill the residents outside of the village, a special tax district had to be set up. The town received assistance from the League of Cities and Towns in doing this, he said.

Such a tax district certainly could be set up here, Hutchinson said, and he said he may give some attention to that possibility. Formerly, he had shied away from it because it might seem to be "a step away from" the concept of the merger of town and village.