Police Budget Metrics Compared To Neighboring Towns

To the Editor:

A letter ahead of this week’s fifth referendum on the town budget had an arresting title: “Cut the Police Budget.” The citizen who had broken the unwritten rule that the Newtown Police Department’s budget is immune from interrogation must be either fearless or foolish, I thought. The latter more than the former, it proved in the reading. But the inanity of the letter does not detract from the interest of the question raised by its title: Is there fat in the police budget?

Newtown has 51 full-time law enforcement employees (comprising 46 sworn officers and five civilian employees) serving a population of 27,560 residents, yielding  a ratio of 1.9 full-time local law enforcement employees per 1,000 residents. This ratio falls in the middle compared with Newtown’s eight neighboring towns: Bethel, Easton, Brookfield, and Redding have higher ratios (2.6, 2.6, 2.4, and 2.3, respectively); whereas Monroe, Bridgewater, Southbury, and Oxford have lower ratios (1.7, 1.6, 1.3, and 1.1).

Newtown’s ratio of 2011-12 police department budget to town population — $150 per resident — likewise falls in the middle. Monroe, Brookfield, Bethel, and Easton have higher ratios ($236, $196, $191, and $188 per resident, respectively); whereas  Redding, Southbury, Oxford, and Bridgewater have lower ratios ($139, $94, $89, and $76 per resident).

By both measures, the three most cost-efficient police departments are those of Southbury, Oxford, and Bridgewater. What do they have in common?  Unlike the other six towns in the comparison, each of these three participates in the Connecticut State Police Resident Trooper Program.

Robert Hutchinson

8 Split Rock Road, Newtown                                              July 9, 2012