Lawmakers hear case for Windham County pilot to create regional law‑enforcement council

On March 19, the House Committee on Government Operations & Military Affairs heard testimony on S.255, a bill to create a Windham County Law Enforcement Government Council that would let participating towns jointly govern and pay for law‑enforcement and related services delivered by the Windham County Sheriff.

Senator Wendy Harrison, sponsor of the bill, told the committee the pilot is designed for largely rural Windham County and is meant to be voluntary. "It's completely voluntary, which I think is a really important part of this," she said, framing the measure as a locally driven way for towns without police departments to gain more consistent service.

An early overview from legislative counsel Tim Delin described the bill as a session law pilot that would authorize the council to determine service levels, adopt bylaws, develop performance metrics, contract with the sheriff's department to provide services, and submit an annual budget for inclusion by the Windham County assistant judges in the county budget. The council may begin operations and taxation on July 1, 2026, or when five or more municipalities vote to join, whichever comes later. Annual audits, quarterly financial reports, and annual reporting to the committee (beginning in 2027) are required; a final report is due December 31, 2033, and the council would sunset June 30, 2034.

Windham County Sheriff Mark Anderson, who testified at length in support, said the bill is intended not to create a new tax but "to replace existing funding with a different mechanism," giving municipalities a governance voice and smoothing the fragile patchwork of individual contracts that many towns now use. Anderson said the county currently contracts with about 15 of the roughly 23 towns and serves a county population of about 45,000; his office raises "just under three‑quarters of a million dollars" annually through existing contracts to provide policing and related services.

Anderson argued that the pilot would help address uneven access to policing: "Access to law enforcement in rural Vermont towns lacks consistency or equity," he told the committee. He described operational problems created by multiple, small, individualized contracts — for example, very small contracts (Athens pays roughly $5,000 a year for about one hour of service a week) that can be exhausted by a single serious incident — and said consolidating contracting and budgeting through a council could produce more predictable coverage.

Tim Delin and committee members walked through several substantive design choices in the bill. Membership is limited to one representative per participating municipality; the bill specifies that representative shall be a serving select board member. The council develops an annual budget that the assistant judges would include as a special assessment on participating towns in proportion to population; non‑participating towns would not be assessed. A municipality may withdraw by majority vote of its legislative body, with withdrawal effective at the end of the next fiscal year.

Kim McManus of the Department of State Attorneys and Sheriffs testified that the proposal "would not impact our department," saying state transport deputies would not be involved in the regional policing functions the council would oversee and that the department was monitoring the pilot concept.

Committee members asked about several practical matters — notice and effective date for withdrawal, whether the select board member requirement might deter participation if a town prefers to appoint a manager, how short contracts are handled in practice, and whether the pilot would change staffing levels. Witnesses said the council would be limited in scope (law enforcement only), would work from existing resources rather than expand statewide personnel, and should develop bylaws and service standards before budgeting. Several witnesses emphasized that the pilot is time‑limited and intended to produce real‑world information that could guide future legislative changes.

The committee did not take a vote on S.255 during the session. Witnesses said that if the bill becomes law, practical steps would include town decisions to appoint representatives, early governance meetings in the fall to develop bylaws and coverage goals, and then budget votes in municipal meetings (the earliest possible town votes would come at the March 2027 town meetings, with operations starting in July 2027 if timelines align). The committee indicated it will call additional witnesses and continue deliberations in a later session.