WHATELY — In response to a shared shortage of police officers, the Whately and Hatfield police departments are considering the possibility of regionalizing.
“It’s kind of one of those things that we see coming in the future,” Whately Police Chief James Sevigne Jr. said at the town’s July 29 Selectboard meeting.
According to Sevigne and Hatfield Police Chief Michael Dekoschak, when the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission formed in 2020, municipal police officers — including part-time officers in Whately and Hatfield — participated in training that allowed them to become certified full-time officers. Sevigne explained the rise in these certifications drove officers to seek full-time positions outside Whately and Hatfield.
“That created a little bit of a problem for us small towns that relied heavily on part-time officers,” Sevigne explained, adding, “Now, we’re running into a shortage, which we saw coming five, six years ago.”
According to Dekoschak, the Hatfield Police Department consisted of 14 officers in 2020. Now, six officers staff the department, including four full-time officers and two part-time officers. With fewer police officers looking for part-time positions, Sevigne foresees the Whately Police Department eventually running out of part-time officers to sustain it, which has prompted him and Dekoschak to discuss regionalization.
In conversations so far, the two chiefs and other town officials have discussed a three-phase approach. For Phase 1, the towns would discuss sharing a police chief. With Dekoschak planning to retire in December, Phase 1 would entail Sevigne stepping into that role.
“This is the best time to do it when there’s a chief retiring,” Dekoschak said in a phone interview on Friday.
The two towns may also consider Phase 2, or regionalizing police services, in the future, meaning the officers in each town would serve both Whately and Hatfield.
“That would keep the individual identities of the police departments, and that would keep everything the same as each department runs currently, just again using a shared chief,” Sevigne said.
For Phase 3, the towns would look at regionalizing the two departments into one — a “much more difficult” path that would require years of work, given that the towns use different courts, jails and dispatch centers. The change would also likely require Town Meeting approval, Sevigne added.
“That’s a long-term option,” Sevigne noted.
At the July 29 Whately Selectboard meeting, members expressed interest in exploring Phase 1 as a first step.
“Let’s see if we do a shared chief, how that works,” Chair Fred Baron said.
Given that the town of Hatfield would pay a portion of Sevigne’s salary if he worked for both communities, Whately Town Administrator Peter Kane mentioned that Phase 1, regionalizing police chiefs, would reduce Whately’s bill.
“Something that comes to mind for me is, if there is something happening that the chief needed to be at both towns at the same time, would we then need a deputy chief or something like that?” Selectboard member Bradley Bean asked the group.
Baron said this hypothetical was discussed earlier with Dekoschak and other Hatfield officials, and the group suggested promoting someone in the departments to respond to their town in that situation. Baron said he believes the police chief and the proposed second-in-command should represent different towns to best respond to these scenarios.
Selectboard member Julianna Waggoner brought up former South County EMS Chief Joshua Sparks’ decision to charge Hatfield a $350 service fee per ambulance request to cover the cost of mutual aid. The move came after South County EMS responded to 97 calls in Hatfield between last July and Dec. 31, while the Hatfield Fire Department had responded to South County EMS’ coverage area just once between July and January.
“I know they are two different things, but it does make me slightly hesitant to consider entering into an agreement of shared anything with Hatfield, given the track record with South County [EMS],” Waggoner said.
Baron assured Waggoner that the South County EMS situation with Hatfield is “top of mind” for him and others involved in that issue, and claimed her concern would only apply to Phases 2 and 3, not the idea of regionalizing police chiefs.
Kane added that he believes a formal agreement regarding regionalization of any kind with Hatfield would help prevent “non-mutual mutual aid,” as Baron described.
“Based on our conversations and where Hatfield is going, I think we’re building relationships here that we can depend on,” Kane continued.
Dekoschak declined to comment on Waggoner’s concern.
The Hatfield Selectboard will discuss sharing a police chief with Whately at its meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 5:30 p.m. Then, the Whately Selectboard members hope to meet with the Hatfield Selectboard for a joint public hearing in September to discuss the possibility of regionalizing police chiefs, services or departments, and to hear from residents about their concerns and questions, with the goal of reaching an agreement before December.
“This is the starting point for the public to be aware of this,” Kane said.
