In a time of protests calling to “Defund the police,” Waterbury already has

July 31, 2020  | By Sidney Bewlay | Community News Service 

A Waterbury Police cruiser parked along Main Street at the former police headquarters before the department was disbanded. File photo by Gordon Miller.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police on May 25 sparked protests across the world calling for racial justice and police reform including in Vermont.

Amidst peaceful protests, marches and demonstrations are cries to “defund the police” as activists call for redirecting dollars to fund social services to respond to emergencies involving individuals in crisis rather than relying on law enforcement. 

Although done to lighten the tax burden and government structure, Waterbury has already pared down its policing spending by disbanding not only its police department but also dissolving the municipality that supported it. 

As a result, Waterbury’s current spending on police though a contract with Vermont State Police puts it in 41st place among Vermont municipalities for police spending. That’s according to a recent project by University of Vermont researchers who collected statewide data on police budgets.  

An economical alternative 

In 2017, the Village of Waterbury voted to disband its municipal government, a decision that dissolved the village police force. What remained became a water-sewer district to continue to run those essential services. In July 2018, Waterbury began a three-year contract with the Vermont State Police in which two state troopers are dedicated to the Waterbury beat with assistance from  other on-duty troopers from the nearby Middlesex barracks when the assigned officers are not working. 

Keeping a local department was expensive for taxpayers who questioned whether the Village of Waterbury, which had a population of about 1,400 in 2017, actually needed a local force. The cost of running the village department made up more than half of the village budget, which was the largest incentive to defund and close the department.

The current contract was put in place at the end of 2017 and officially began in the middle of 2018. It calls for two resident state troopers in Waterbury, working 80 hours a week combined, and additional Middlesex troopers who are on call if needed. Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk says that today the arrangement with the state “seems to be adequate and meets the needs of the town by and large.”

Shepeluk explained that with the former village police department, police officers were known to visit local businesses often and were a more visible presence around Waterbury. Now, the state troopers may be less visible to residents and business owners of Waterbury, but Shepeluk said that there have been “not many complaints...or compliments either” about the troopers. 

Previously,  it wasn’t unusual, for example for local police officers to physically stop in at local bars and restaurants. Shepeluk says that this helped discourage drinking and driving. 

With the previous local police, most complaints called in would have had an officer go and investigate in person. Now, with the state troopers investigations may be made over the phone rather than sending a trooper to the location of the call, especially with minor incidents like property crimes.

Shepeluk notes that  the two “resident troopers” in Waterbury are simply “two troopers who are dedicated to Waterbury.” The word “resident” can be confusing as the two troopers do not necessarily live in Waterbury. The term “resident” refers to their specific assignment to Waterbury. They work out of the Middlesex State Police barracks where troopers are responsible for covering 18 communities.  

Waterbury’s resident troopers are responsible for traffic control and radar detection, passing through town in their cruisers to show a police presence, holding office hours, and responding to complaints or calls. Unlike the former village police, the troopers do not give out parking tickets or enforce parking ordinances, Shepeluk noted.

Statewide statistics

Last month, VTDigger published an article and database looking at police spending in 141 Vermont communities. The database was compiled by student researchers in UVM’s Legislative Internship Center. Waterbury came in 41st on that list with spending of $406,020 in fiscal year 2020. 

The student researchers found that Vermont, across 141 towns, has had a $3 million increase in police budgets in fiscal year 2020. This is a 4% increase from fiscal year 2019. 

In Waterbury, fiscal year 2020 spending accounts for 7.4% of the town’s general fund budget and was practically level with 2019. Per capita that cost breaks down to about $79.

Waterbury police spending compared with statewide data

In 2017, Waterbury local officials and community members weighed the costs and benefits of outfitting municipal police department versus the state police contract. At the time, officials estimated that a local department to cover the entire municipality at $625,000 annually.

“A local department would be a lot more expensive as a local department would require a chief, at least two or three officers, a lot of equipment, and a building to be housed in,” Shepeluk explained. By comparison, the baseline price for the state police contract was $1,000 per day or $365,000 annually.

The decision to create a program between Waterbury and Vermont State Police was considered a pilot program, setting the example for smaller towns in the state. This contract was feasible in Waterbury both financially and by the smaller population size compared to towns like Burlington or Milton, Shepeluk said. 

Currently, Waterbury’s population is just over 5,000, including about 1,800 residents in the village. The state police contract has one more year and so far, there have not been any calls to explore a different arrangement.  

The Waterbury Select Board usually hosts monthly meetings with representatives from the Vermont State Police including the resident troopers to go over expectations and monthly crime reports. Those meetings have not been as regular since the COVID-19 outbreak however.

At the end of the first year of the contract in June 2019, the Waterbury Resident Trooper Project Report showed that 1,101 calls had been placed to state police. Of those, 36% were service assists, 30% were traffic incidents, 21% were property incidents, and 13% were personal disputes. 

A Vermont State Police trooper pulls over a motorist in Waterbury recently. Photo by Gordon Miller.

And based on the timing of those calls, the two resident troopers responded to 54% of calls; the remaining 46% fell to the Middlesex troopers on duty at the time. Additionally, the report found that response times for the resident troopers was 1-15 minutes while responses by on-duty officers from the Middlesex barracks ranged from 20 minutes to over an hour, depending upon the urgency of the call and the location of the responding trooper. 

The resident troopers also hosted bimonthly community engagement meetings during the first year of the program that received positive community feedback.The second year of the contract has so far seen a similar breakdown. In a report on the first three quarters ranging from July 2019 through March 2020, the state police logged 915 calls. Of those 39% were service assists, 33% were traffic incidents, 16% were property incidents, and 12% were personal disputes. 

The responses were almost evenly split between the resident troopers -- 51% and the on-duty Middlesex troopers at 49%, according to the report. The average response time for both categories was unchanged from the previous year.

Waterbury’s contract with the state police will expire on June 20, 2021. At that time Waterbury’s Select Board and state police representatives will evaluate whether they would like to continue the program and look at the costs of a new contract, Shepeluk said. He noted that the arrangement has some trade-offs. The Vermont State Police provide a “different level of service as opposed to a local department, but we knew that going into the contract. Based off of what the state promised us from the troopers, they are doing exactly that,” Shepeluk said. Shepeluk said he believes that the select board is “reasonably happy with the current contract and would prefer to continue it,” provided that the  projected cost of the program in the future does not increase too much. 

Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting and Documentary Storytelling program.