Barnstead officials ready for tonight's public hearing on turning policing over to the sheriff's department

BARNSTEAD — While the eyes of many small N.H. communities look on, selectmen are prepared to take a proposal to subcontract police services to the county sheriff to the town's resident beginning tonight.

Selectmen met last night with members of the specially formed police department study committee, Sheriff Craig Wiggin, members of the Belknap County administration team and Police Chief Ken Borgia to prepare for tonight's public hearing.

Tonight is the first of two scheduled public hearings and selectmen said they would like to see Wiggin and Borgia make some kind of presentation to residents and then open the session for a question-and-answer period.

According to preliminary numbers presented by Wiggin, the town can subcontract for four full-time sheriff's deputies and four leased cruisers and save taxpayers as much as $140,000 in 2012.

Right now, Borgia said the town is operating with three full-time police officers and has been relying on the sheriff's department to augment some shifts.

Wiggin said his numbers for 2012 are pretty solid with the exceptions of the costs of contributions to the state retirment system, the price of gas and fuel, and the cost of health insurance — all topics that leave local budget makers with the same unknowns.

While those at the meeting tacitly agreed four full-time police officers is where the town is comfortable, County Administrator Deb Shackett said the county team is also prepared to show taxpayers numbers for five full-time officers and let the residents use that information for their decision making.

Selectboard Chair Bob LaRoche said he believes with two public hearings plus an adequately announced session for the actual vote that selectmen are empowered to make the decision under RSA 53 A.

"My feeling is that if we see a lot of positive flow, then we vote on it," he said.

Both the county and the town of Barnstead are on a fiscal year that begins in January. Ideally, Shackett said it would be best for all to have only to prepare one budget.

Fire Chief Mark Tetreault sat of the police committee and said that in his opinion if people come to the public hearings and listen to the proposal, then most of the angst will be relieved.

"Above all," said Selectman Priscilla Tiede, "We're in a critical situation. We need to do something."

Increasingly, other small communities are finding it more and more expensive to maintain individual town departments and Barnstead has been on the cutting edge of finding ways to regionalize some of its functions to save taxpayer dollars.

In 2007, Barnstead joined the Suncook Valley Regional Association — an informal, regional group comprised of area towns for the purpose of sharing operational data and identifying opportunities for possible collaborative arrangements between the towns.

The desired goal was to ensure town operations were as efficient as possible and to reduce costs where possible.

At this time, the SVRTA was is comprised of the towns of Chichester, Epsom, Barnstead, Pittsfield, Pembroke and Strafford.

Tonight's public hearing will begin at 7 p.m. at Town Hall. The second public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday Sept. 28 also at 7 p.m.