Much of northwestern York County is policed by the York County Sheriff’s Office, and most of the small, rural communities rely upon the officers for assistance in emergencies, to enforce speeding and driving infractions and when a crime takes place.

Most of the county’s coastal communities and cities retain their own police departments for such coverage, and there is a high cost for maintaining the services provided by a full-time police force in one’s own community. This cost, however, should not be held against the towns that do not have the means to pay for a police department or a dedicated deputy. It should also not stand in the way of the York County Sheriff’s Office ability to serve the county as a whole.

The issue came up at a recent county commissioners meeting when Sheriff Maurice Ouellette sought approval from the board to accept a $250,000 federal grant to add two officers to his staff. The grant funding, said Ouellette, would help replace a deputy who was laid off last year after a grant expired, and would ensure that a position funded by another grant due to expire at the end of the year will continue. The grants provide partial funding for both positions.

Ouellette and the York County Sheriff’s officers have been charged with covering more than half of the county’s square mileage at a fraction of the cost that the police departments combined spend to cover less area. At $2.26 million, the York County Sheriff’s Office provides primary coverage to 522 square miles of land comprised of the communities without police departments, while the 15 communities with police departments cover a combined 515 square miles at a cost of more than $26.5 million. Those police departments employ a total of 300 sworn officers, while the sheriff’s office has just 27.

Commissioner Gary Sinden, whose district includes the southern, coastal York County towns of York, Wells, Ogunquit, Kittery and Eliot, said his constituents are struggling to pay for their own police departments and shouldn’t have to pay more. Sinden said towns covered by the sheriff’s office should participate in the contract deputy program, wherein a town gets a dedicated deputy in their community and picks up part of the tab. Contract deputies typically start with some grant funding to get the position established and purchase a cruiser, and then the town pays the additional cost, or the entire cost once the grant expires. There are currently four contract deputies covering Waterboro, Arundel, Limington and Regional School Unit 57.

The discussion that ensued at the meeting caused the commissioners to put off a vote on accepting the grant funding, despite the 90-day deadline to accept the grant.

This attitude of “I only want to pay for what’s in my backyard” is getting old, and has become all too prevalent, as evidenced by the multiple withdrawal efforts in the area’s regional school units. Everyone seems to want to pay only for the services from which they directly benefit, and say “the hell to everyone else and their needs.”

This polarizing type of talk is doing nothing to help the county, communities or residents, and in the end, services, employees and students are negatively affected.

While Sinden’s concerns are understandable, voters in York, Wells, Ogunquit, Kittery, Eliot and all of the other towns with police forces chose to establish departments due to their perceived needs for public safety. People in the towns that do not have police departments have to wait for an available member of the York County Sheriff’s Office staff when they place a call for service, and the officers have to prioritize those calls to make sure those in emergency situations get the help they need. But that is a decision that those voters made to not be served by their own police force, and they have to live with that decision as well.

As budgets get tighter and the economy continues to plateau, tough decisions will have to be made ”“ but they also need to be smart decisions.

Taking advantage of federal monies to maintain staffing levels at York County Sheriff’s Office would be a smart decision. Commissioners should consider that although the sheriff’s officers focus on those communities without police departments, they also assist the men and women in blue of the other county police departments and have taken the same vow to serve and protect.