Bar Harbor, Mount Desert boards review police consolidation plan

[3:31] Councilor Gaines: okay it is 6 p.m i'm going to call this meeting to order it's a joint workshop with the mount desert select board so hi and welcome the town council has two excused absences so i'll take a motion to excuse counselor keith and boucher you can leave and counselor brecklin Councilor Boucher please I'll make the motion to excuse okay we have a motion to second any discussion okay we do a vote should I just do we need you want to do a roll call yeah so [4:19] Councilor Sprague: Would you like me to do it? Yeah, do you want to do it? Councilor Sprague? Yes. Councilor Biggers? Yes. Council Manitoba? Yes. Council Boucher? Yes. [4:27] Councilor Gaines: Councilor Gaines? Yes. Mm-hmm. Any action from Congress? So I'll pass it over to the police chief to talk to us about consolidation. Yes. [4:42] Police Chief: So thank you, members of the council and the select board, for having us back in front of you. The last time we talked was July 28th of 25. And I think there's a few new elected officials on both sides. So I kind of gave this police service integration proposal. We trimmed it down a little bit, but it will give you a little bit of history. But I'll recap quickly for you guys to let you know how we ended up here. So in 2013, Bar Harbor and Mount Desert started sharing police chief on the Bar Harbor side. As we worked through the next five to ten years, we slowly started to integrate, realizing that both jurisdictions could be served well by a joint force between the two agencies and we streamlined our records management system so we're all in one CAD and dispatch phones all of that in 2000 you know when I get I know so about three years ago I took over as the police chief and captain wharf here's my second command we really started looking at the redundancies that we were doing for both pounds as far as budgetary purposes payroll and personnel, inequity in wages, not so much, just we kept seesawing back and forth because we could never get it right. So we came to both town managers, at the time and we're like, we would like to consider moving towards, you know, a unified employer for all of the employees. Didn't really regard matter which town, but just to keep it fair and equitable as far as the employees and their benefits, personnel rules. and so that's kind of how we ended up here today so the personnel integration plan the current staffing level in the matrix on the handout will kind of break down of where the positions are currently held and or excuse me funded and so we have a total combined of 23 in bar harbor and 11 for mount dessert so combined would be a total of 34. And so this really is a strategy that we put together internally behind the scenes, and I think the big message for everybody here as well as communities, you're never going to see a change in how we're operating. It's very much going to be the same, and this is really more on the back end as far as payroll, where they're employed, and making sure that both towns have a say and how their communities are policed. So no reductions in personnel, no interruptions in service. The big thing is the payroll and personnel and benefits side. There is really no cost to increase per se anything that we've talked about and discussed between the town managers and finance for both sides. The big difference is that we're going to see a cost shift on the Bar Harbor side where all of that is going to be budgeted under the police department and the offsetting revenue will be coming in, but it has to be shown in our operating budget. And I've talked to the managers, Manager Smith has a very good plan as far to how to lay that out in our budget book so it's very transparent as far as where those costs are coming from and how they're going to be offset on the other side with the revenue. So as we get into the operational continuity, we talked about, you know, community is not going to see any changes in their police service, and so we will make sure that we have the organizational structure and chain of command. It's very similar to what it is right now, but with the town managers of both towns, if there are community needs or community policing or stuff that needs to be addressed in both communities, that there's a method in which to make sure that's relayed in a timely manner, but where all the employees are now going to be at Bar Harbor. That's the big shift. The big, I don't know if it's a cost savings, but it's a time savings. So time is equal to money in our eyes. A lot of stuff that we've put on hold, I won't say hold, but accreditation is a big thing that we want to do for the police organization. Some of the administrative side of what we're doing, keeping track of everything and keeping it separate, is limited some of the time that we're able to dedicate different things that we do administratively. But I think this will really help us alleviate some of that redundancy and time and effort on the finance side. And I speak for the police department, but it's equally as taxing for our finance department from both Bar Harbor and Mount Desert, just keep track of all the money that's going back and forth the big change i'll say big but it's really not a big change more than a cost shift currently the structure in which we talk about how mount dessert and bar harbor cost share the shared employees so right now that's myself, Captain Wharf, an administrative assistant, Karen Richter, and then our mental health liaison. So those are at a 60-40 split. That number was kind of arbitrary. That came way back 10 or plus years ago, and it had to do with the amount of time that Chief Willis was spending in one community or the other. So he kept track of time, and it came out to be 60-40. So in this proposal, we realized that either municipality, if they wanted to have a police department of their own, that command structure would be, have to be in place in both communities. So we've actually changed the administrative cost sharing to a 50-50 split. So even if we, not we, but collective we, down the road decide to pull this apart someday, you would have to hire a chief in Bar Harbor, you would have to hire a chief in Mount Desert, and command staff to support the PD. So we figured that was a 50-50 cough share opposed to a 60-40. We then broke down the current funding for both municipalities as far as the, I guess it would be the staff level, so from our supervisors down, and that works out to a one-third two-thirds split. So it actually changes from 6040 to 33 and a third to 66. So a little bit of cost shift on the top end and then some shift on the bottom end as well. And why we did that was really when we looked at the potential insurance and liabilities, we wanted to have a cost formula that was equitable for both communities, and 6040 really wasn't it. So we went back to the staffing levels as far as what agency or what each organization was staffing prior to us merging together and took that to be the cost split, and then we talk about a rebalance too, so as we move Through the years, and if one community or the other decides, you know, we need more police services here, we need more of this there, those would be annually rebalanced as far as if one community was looking for more police services or wanted to add an additional police officer for patrol, that we would then look and go, okay, that community wants more service, therefore the cost shift or balance needs to be looked at a little bit. So category six there with implementation and approval process, that's kind of what we're in today. You'll see that our meeting is listed out for October 15, so I think this really in our eyes is kind of a green light from the elected officials from both towns as we head into our budgetary season. We want to make sure before we start going down a road that we have blessings from both of you elected bodies to make sure that we are in fact doing exactly what you want us to do, because once we get down that road I think it's a little bit hard to pull it all back out for budgetary to get it out to the voters. So but if I if you any questions as we work through this, I think I did have another whole page. Oh, the conflict and resolution issues, this is still a little bit light. We talked about this today with both managers, I think they want to still get some language in there in the MOU that we have a draft in front of you today that just kind of really future-proofs this when these town managers are no longer here, when I'm no longer here, we're no longer here, that it future-proofs us as far as what we're doing for the communities rather than it making about us and what we're doing now, to make sure that this is a legacy plan for what these communities want to do. So our timeline, really we hope to have something done by early April to present back to you for adoption. I think Mountain Dessert it will end up going as a warren article on the town meeting, and then obviously budgetary wise both processes will be full involved at that point, and then we hope to have the full integration occurring July 1st of 2027, so at the beginning of our fiscal years. And really the key benefits, which I talked about a little bit, but it's the streamlining of administration, standardized personnel policies and benefits for all employees, and I think very early on in this both towns attorneys for Mount Desert and Bar Harvard talked about dual liability, that we were both kind of hanging out there in the relationship that we had as far as suits or lawsuits that came towards Us and even though we were presented by town's attorneys that was a problem, both communities decided to continue to do what we were doing for the last 13 years. But this is going to reduce or eliminate that completely because only one town truly would be the employer of these, the police department. So you're gonna see some cost savings on police liability insurance for both towns. I don't think we haven't got a figure for FY28 going in for police liability with all the personnel coming this way. But the cost shift with that share being 50 should make cost savings for both, and then one of the appendices on the MOU actually talks about liability if we were to get sued, how that looks and what that cost shift split is, which we based back upon what is funded for both pounds for the sworn officers. But that's kind of the down-and-dirty of it, and if anybody has questions and people that weren't here or on the boards prior to our first joint meeting, anything that I can clarify, and then the MOU is really still in draft form, but I wanted to get it to you guys today so you can look through. [16:14] Select Board Member: We'll have everything in time to get it on the warrant that's before April 1st. [16:19] Police Chief: It is before April 1st, we put April 1st in here, we talked today and he wants to make sure we get it for the warrant, so I will work with Claire to make sure that [16:27] Councilor Gaines: we get everything in time, so we'll see basically a tentative version of the [16:34] Councilor Sprague: budget with this 50-50 split, correct? Part of what we're hoping to see, that is a lot of heads shaking yes, that this looks like we're still heading in the right direction and we're, we're comfortable with what we're proposing because we need to start developing those budgets, and of course our numbers are suggesting to us that like any changes in cost are going to be very negligible, and so neither town should see any type of a shock to their cost of service because we're really not changing the levels of service we do expect to be under the insurance probably some savings there 's some realignment for the personnel but i think everybody's already factored that and understands those mitigating circumstances so we would probably proceed with at some point in the very near future each board taking a separate action to authorize Alex and myself to enter into this MOU as we are developing those budgets and showing what that looks like on paper for each community. [17:52] Councilor Biggers: I am more recent to this. What about the vehicles that are owned by the respective towns? Is that completely separate from this? It's completely separate from this. So we took a look at when Alex came on board with to [18:08] Police Chief: replace Berlin we had we kind of anticipated to do this a year ago or a year ago in July and so this is the easiest way to kind of keep everything separate and we talked about over time when we have funding for CIP and vehicles but with attrition to rather than just taking assets and calculating value of everything and trying to cost shift across and pay is just as things slowly depreciate and get replaced that cost or that asset would be then purchased by the town of Bar Harbor and that money then would just be part of the agreement. [18:46] Councilor Sprague: We were looking at a little bit of a nightmare process to try to catch every single thing as of June 30th, 2027 and we had a moment I think sitting in the meeting we were like, why are we doing this? Is there really a reason for this? So letting attrition take its course is going to make life a lot easier for everyone. [19:03] Councilor Gaines: Great thank you I just had a kind of question about logistics and I know you've said this a million times but please repeat it and it could be high level is can you just talk a little bit about right there's 16 total patrol officers and they're hired in these different municipalities how do you kind of like disperse them out throughout the towns because my understanding is kind of that they all are you know patrolling yeah okay so realistically on [19:33] Police Chief: paper with the state and the courts like we are one agency right now so our current command structure we have 16 sworn underneath us well for patrol officers so it's to me Chris and then we have four sergeants and then three on a patrol ship underneath that so a supervisor and then three patrol officers we have the two towns broken up into three patrol areas so one would be downtown Bar Harbor out to Hulls Cove zone two is Northeast Harbor all the way over to Seal Harbor Auto Creek and then the head of the island down through Hull Quarry is zone three so we basically patrol those as district or zones for us so as we have three patrol officers and supervisor on each one of those officers has a responsibility or an area but that you kind of erase the town [20:29] Councilor Gaines: lines and then the mental health liaison is go is going throughout both [20:35] Police Chief: municipalities yeah great and she her position has become invaluable and our [20:40] Councilor Gaines: Patrol has embraced it wholeheartedly, I know, and I see it all the time in the police reports. I'm like, wow, like, she's all over the place, it's amazing and [20:48] Police Chief: they've realized with the benefit of having somebody that can take a CAD call or a call right off from the computer, a dispatch, to go, I'm familiar with this person, I dealt with him last week, and just to not have a uniformed officer tied up with a lot [21:02] Councilor Gaines: of what she's doing. Great, so that's great. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, all right, anything else? [21:08] Councilor Boucher: Yeah, do you revisit the zones? I mean, this things change. Now this year over here, not so much there [21:18] Police Chief: you must regularly consider. So we do, yeah, so we, and it's not so much we move zones, but depending on calls and our policies, like a domestic violence call, that's a two-officer response. So we have three guys on, or three patrol officers on at any one time, plus a supervisor. So zones, even though that is their area of responsibility for the shift, it very well could be that a Zone 1 guy shifts over to another zone to help out with whatever's going on, or traffic enforcement, or backup. Up, or yeah, so and then that supervisor really is the one that's managing where those, you know, where the resources need to go in any given shift. Great, awesome. [21:58] Councilor Boucher: Yeah, I'm kind of curious too, I don't know the relationship currently, I know there's good mutual aid between fire and EMT and so forth. Do you think this could lead to more of a unification of Northeast Harbor's fire department and By Harbor's fire department? [22:16] Councilor Gaines: It's the angels question. I don't know if I want to comment on that [22:21] Councilor Sprague: down the road you want to go, or no, go ahead, Alex. We did talk about it, yeah, I think over time I think you'll naturally see that, and I think the fire chiefs of our two towns have already started to develop a strong, we have a brand new one coming on November 3rd, and they've already started doing that, and in fact when we interviewed for our incoming fire chief, yours was part of the interview panel and really helpful. So I think it's just little steps like that as we go along that will help us keep moving in that direction but you know there's a lot of history of these places for the for mount dessert we still view the fact that we regard one fire department for the whole town is the recent merger so that we don't have a northeast harbor in the seal harbor so you know fire departments are historically very localized and so you know it's It's going to be a long process. [23:13] Councilor Boucher: It did take 30 years to get a consolidated high school, if I'm correct. There's a certain amount of, this is my town. [23:24] Councilor Sprague: I want my people here. [23:25] Councilor Boucher: I know that's part of it. [23:27] Police Chief: Well, yeah, and that's some of the first joint meeting that we had. I mean, why it's been 13 years for us to get to this point, same thing. I mean, we started working together really closely probably within the first five to seven years. But here we are 13 years later and we still haven't made this next step to make sure that, you know, the two officers working side by side on the same call that may be employed by different towns are making the same wage and the same [23:52] Councilor Brecklin: benefits. I mean, it's, yeah, I was just curious, the performance evaluations, do you guys anticipate that being something as needed, or are you going to have an, that set up annually or twice a year? Is there structure for that? I haven't gone [24:10] Police Chief: through the whole MOU yet, so we have in that we would do an annual report for both towns, and I think as we get going with this, I think we'll probably do fairly regular performance, but then figure out what's the, what's the right [24:31] Councilor Sprague: Yeah, and I see that as like potentially two separate areas of discussion. You know, there's the internal performance review, none of that really changes, right, with the chief. But I do think, you know, the part of that is Alex and my relationship between the communities, with how happy are we with the quality of the police and are we still on track, are we still delivering and the services that we once delivered, and that's a separate conversation for performance, just to make sure everybody feels like they're receiving the value. Sure, yeah, and I just meant [25:07] Councilor Brecklin: like as a whole, as this program, you know, just accountability up front, how often are we kind of checking in just to say we've crossed the t's? Okay, so [25:17] Select Board Member: I remember when we first started this in 2013 and there was some unease among citizens in our town. I don't know in Bar Harbor if it, like, what it's, what's gonna happen, how's it gonna be, are they gonna forget about, and I over time I haven't heard any complaints. Have you [25:36] Police Chief: noticed any kind of, I don't think the reaction, I think early on there was a lot of that in the beginning there you know we had different cars we had different uniforms and badges and patches and all those things and if you showed up to a call as a Bar Harbor person in Mount Desert, they'd be like, well, why are you here? But for the most of the time, our people would take the time to explain it and then it was fine. And, you know, it just became another thing. And now you will know if the person is employed in Mount Desert or not because we have the same patch, the same badge, same uniform, same car. Everything looks the same. We're all trained the same. We all know both communities. So it's to that point now where you wouldn't know. Unless you know the officer and where they work, you would have no idea. [26:20] Councilor Gaines: Yeah, okay, great, anything else? Okay, so you want us to review this, we'll come back to our managers with any notes on the MOU and then go forward. Any other action? [26:37] Councilor Sprague: I'm not sure how Alex would plan to handle it, but you know, barring some strong concerns and objections from individual counselors, if the consensus seems to be there that this is ready for the next step, we would probably just prepare the appropriate counsel order to authorize myself to enter into the MOU and I assume Alex would take a similar track. I know, I don't know, is that we need to have a bunch more formal meetings? Yeah, I guess we're at that point, but I also want individual counselors to have opportunity digest it, review it, and ask questions if they have. I mean, essentially authorizing us to start putting, doing the fine-tuning and getting [27:20] Councilor Biggers: this thing done. I'm comfortable with it. Yeah, process-wise, does Bar Harbor have a kind of town-wide warrant article step to this or is it just us? I don't think, I think just the amount of [27:32] Councilor Sprague: dessert has that process as a select board town meeting yeah okay [27:37] Councilor Gaines: Great, thank you guys, I'll take a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Yeah, second. Okay, do you want to do a roll call? [27:46] Councilor Sprague: Sure, Counselor Sprague? Yes. Council Vickers? Yes. Council Manatella? Yes. Councillor Boucher? Yes. [27:52] Councilor Gaines: Councillor Kings? Yes. Thank you guys, thank you, thank you. I mean, look at that, wow, when you guys are here we're even extra. I guess I didn't need to pay for all that parking.