Fox Valley police merger study outlined

Village trustees in East and West Dundee and Sleepy Hollow will not have to wait long after the start of 2011 to get more information about the idea of merging their three police departments.

Thursday, Jan. 6, trustees and their constituents will have a chance to hear the results of a study to determine the capability of the three departments.

They also will have a chance to ask questions of its author, Bill Balling, of the WRB LLC consulting firm.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Dundee Township Senior Center, Route 25 in Carpentersville. No decision is expected to be made at the gathering, but it will give the elected officials the same answers at the same time, said Sleepy Hollow Village President Steve Pickett.

“This is just phase one of the project,” he said. “From (the meeting), we'll decide if we'll go to phase two. It's better to get all three groups in the same room and hear the same answers to questions we all have.”

In spring, the three village board agreed to look into the matter to determine if they could save money by working with one large police department instead of three smaller departments. The three villages are contiguous; officers all help each other on serious calls and in many cases, the departments provide the same services.

“We don't know how this thing is going to turn out, but the important thing is there will be no reduction in service or quality of life in the villages if it happens,” Pickett said.

The costs of the police departments make up a good share of the budgets in the three villages. Combined, East and West Dundee and Sleepy Hollow trustees spend $5.8 million each year to solve crimes and protect residents, said West Dundee Village Manager Joe Cavallaro.

In Sleepy Hollow alone, the police department accounts for three quarters of the village's $1.2 million budget, Pickett said.

“The village boards decided to look into the matter to eliminate the duplication of services,” Cavallaro said. “In these tough economic times, regionalization is one of the best ways to reduce the cost of the services and make better use of the public's tax dollars while maintaining or improving services.”

The Quadcomm emergency dispatching system is a good example. Before the 1980s, village police and fire departments in Dundee Township villages had their own dispatchers for emergency calls. Eventually, a regional dispatching system was created and the departments saved money on salaries and eliminated the need for different radio frequencies.

Sharing the same frequency opened the door for an automatic mutual aid system to be created.

The final decision on whether to consolidate the police departments is not close, Pickett said. Once the details of the study are discussed, trustee will look further at the number of officers and equipment they will need.

The study cost $22,500. Village trustees split its cost with a grant from the Metropolitan Mayors' Caucus.

Also, they must decide how to cut out the duplication of some staff members, mainly the three police chiefs: Terry Mee in East Dundee; James Montalbano in Sleepy Hollow; and Acting Chief Andy Wieteska in West Dundee.

Each village board must decide to participate in the merger for it to happen.