House Ways & Means finds S.255 favorable to pilot Windham County law‑enforcement governance council

The House Ways & Means Committee voted 10–0–1 on April 22 to find S.255 favorable, advancing legislation that would create a limited pilot Windham County Law Enforcement Governance Council to coordinate sheriff‑provided policing and related services for participating towns and fund them through a special per‑capita assessment.

The bill would let Windham County towns opt in by vote of their legislative bodies, give each participating municipality one council representative (a serving selectboard member), and require the council to set an annual budget that assistant judges would include as a separate line in the county budget. Legislative counsel Tim Devlin said the council would determine service levels, develop performance metrics, monitor delivery and enter necessary agreements, while county treasurers would levy and collect the special assessment proportionate to each member municipality’s population.

"This creates the council for the purpose of providing regional law enforcement and related services during the pilot period," Devlin told the committee, noting the measure is drafted as session law and that operations and taxation could begin on July 1, 2026, or when five or more towns have voted to join, whichever is later. He also stressed the pilot preserves constitutional and statutory duties of the sheriff and state police responsibilities.

Windham County Sheriff Mark Anderson, who testified in support, said his department currently contracts with about 15 towns and that 17 of Windham’s 23 towns have expressed support for the pilot concept. "We contract to provide town policing, dispatching, court security and other services," he said. "This pilot would reduce 15 separate business relationships into one structure and allow towns to share coverage and costs more equitably."

Anderson described the sheriff’s office funding as an "enterprise system" that mixes state salary support, county facility funding and substantial contract revenue for operational costs. He told the committee that per‑capita assessment better reflects policing demand than property‑value apportionment (grand lists), and said the pilot is voluntary and not intended to expand state police roles.

Samantha Shannon of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns told the committee VLCT supports the pilot and clarified that the bill does not change existing municipal taxing authority. "The budget authority rests with the governance council; the revenue authority remains with the county officers," she said, adding that familiar extra‑duty and one‑off interagency contracts could continue alongside the pilot model.

A Joint Fiscal Office representative told the panel the bill would have no fiscal impact on state revenues and is limited to municipal fiscal effects in a single county. The committee also discussed technical language in the bill about "taxation" versus "assessments;" members and counsel agreed to review whether language adjustments or counsel input were needed to align statutory terms with existing county mechanisms.

The bill includes protections for nonparticipants: towns that choose not to join would not be assessed for council operations and would retain the right to contract for local law enforcement or continue to receive state police services as now. The measure also contains reporting and evaluation requirements and a sunset/termination provision tied to the end of the pilot period and to membership falling to one town; the committee discussed a mid‑pilot check and a final report to inform any consideration of broader use.

Representative Masland moved the committee find S.255 favorable; after the clerk called the roll, the motion passed 10–0–1 with Representative Ode absent. The committee’s favorable report advances the bill to the next legislative stage.