Law enforcement contract with Story County Sheriff Dept

As you know, Roland does not have its own police department. I think that ended circa 1998 or so, when the city fathers decided they had enough of the high turnover in the police department. Roland just couldn't pay enough or offer enough "excitement" to keep police officers. So the council went with a contract with the Story County Sheriff Office.

So currently Roland is one of 9 communities in Story County who contract with the SCSO. (The others being Collins, Colo, Gilbert, Kelley, Maxwell, McCallsburg, Slater and Zearing). Having their own PD are Ames, Nevada, Huxley, and Story City. Cambridge contracts with the Huxley PD.

So that contract comes with a cost. We have to pay a per capita rate to the SCSO for law enforcement. The last fiscal year was $49.50, this year is $52.00. So for Roland, that comes out to around $67,000 a year.

So we as a city council have a balance of police coverage versus paying more. If we wanted to have 2 officers of our own, we'd have to pay probably another $100,000 a year. Divided by the number of households in town, that would be another $200 per household. For now, I'm not seeing that as likely happening.

So while we do yearly contracts with the SCSO, to help with budgeting, the Mayors of the 9 communities contracting with the SCSO get together to set what we should pay going forward. The Sheriff makes a presentation on what his expenses are and so forth, and then the Mayors that show up make a recommendation. Six of the nine mayors showed up, including me. After some discussion, we decided a 3% increase in the per capita rate for each of the next 3 years was appropriate. I individually also thought that was appropriate. Our city employees got a 3% raise this year. Obviously the SCSO is not an employee, but if we had police officers, they probably would have gotten a 3% raise. So this is for the whole "department" or at least the public safety/police line item in our budget.

It does affect the smaller towns a lot more. The Mayor of McCallsburg mentioned it is their biggest line item. For us, it is not. But it is what it is, and just wanted to pass along how that all works.