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PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. The village of Pleasantville is currently weighing the option of combining their police department with the Westchester County Police Department in a cost saving move.
Weve been looking at various options of how we can save money within our department and joining forces with the county was one, said Village Administrator Patti Dwyer. Right now were basically waiting for them to submit us a proposal of costs and everything like that and the board will take it from there once we receive that.
Dwyer said the village initially reached out to the county about possibly joining forces in the spring of 2011. In the villages preliminary 2012-13 budget, Pleasantville is set to spend around $3.8 million dollars on their police department; $2.5 million for personnel costs, $1.1 million for benefits, and just over $200,000 for non-personnel costs. The total equals around $541 per each resident in the village. The department currently features 21 full-time officers and five part-time workers.
Kieran OLeary, spokesman for the Westchester County Police, confirmed that the county was in discussions with Pleasantville about combining forces but said that it is still in preliminary stages.
Right now weve had some conversations about the county providing police services to Pleasantville but at this point on our end its still a confidential matter, OLeary said.
In 2011, the village of Ossining combined their police department with the county police, which OLeary called a success. He added that there are benefits that the county can provide to small police departments such as Pleasantville.
By combining with the county, the local department can save on things such as administration and communication, OLeary said. With dispatch, it eliminates the need to have an officer at the desk in their headquarters, all the dispatch would go directly to our county headquarters.
OLeary said that should Pleasantville choose to combine with the county police, it would not deteriorate the amount of officers on duty on a daily basis within the village.
If they have 10 officers on duty in the village, whatever that number of officers on duty is will remain there, OLeary said.
Dwyer said there is no determined timeline for a potential merge. Calls left with Pleasantville Police Chief Richard Love requesting comment were not immediately returned.
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