Windham County pilot for law-enforcement governance earns support and technical questions in committee testimony

The House Government Operations & Military Affairs committee heard testimony on S255 on Thursday, a Windham County bill to establish a five-year pilot law-enforcement governance council that would allow municipalities to opt in to a county-level model for providing policing services.

Chief Evans of the Bradboro Police Department, speaking by Zoom, said he supports the bill and called it "a net positive for policing in our county," noting that only towns that opt in would bear the financial impact. Evans said the pilot could address uneven service levels across the county and recommended that "Sheriff Anderson is a perfect person to run this pilot," citing the need for a strong local leader to make the program work and to gather lessons for possible replication.

Roger Marco, Loyal County Sheriff, said he supports the idea in principle but urged careful review of several technical and legal issues. Marco, who described Loyal County’s existing three-town 24/7 patrol arrangement and regional dispatch, raised questions about how S255 would change county taxation and assessments. "The county treasurer shall levy and collect a special assessment in proportion to each municipality's population," Marco quoted from the bill and asked whether that would require changes to the existing system that currently relies on the grand list. He warned of "unintended consequences" if funding rules or county tax administration were not reconciled with local formulas that determine what towns pay for dispatch and patrol services.

Marco also asked what would happen to equipment and capital assets purchased under a regional agreement if a municipality later opted out. He questioned the five-year sunset provision — "Why if this works out well, why is it going away in five years?" — and whether other counties could join the pilot before the sunset if the model proved successful. He urged the committee to consult legal counsel and the sheriff’s association to avoid setting a precedent that could be replicated in counties with different structures or less experienced leadership.

Members of the committee and other witnesses stressed that the bill already contains reporting and evaluation language and that the five-year sunset is intended to create a checkpoint for legislative review rather than a permanent prohibition on expansion. Representative Morgan and others suggested adding interim check-ins and making sure annual reports capture input from other counties and from municipal participants so the Legislature can assess whether and how the model should be scaled.

Speaking from the gallery, the Windham County Sheriff said the bill is a Windham County initiative and that "my intent is not to include or exclude any counties," emphasizing that guardrails were written to avoid interrupting existing, functioning regional dispatch centers elsewhere.

Josh Hanford, representing the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, told the committee that VLCT supports a bottom-up pilot that municipalities request: "It's not necessarily about the police servicing. The opportunity here is to figure out if this is a new model that can work for regionalization that could address lots of needs that smaller municipalities can't fulfill themselves." Hanford said municipalities that opt in would be the ones choosing a new local assessment to pay for services rather than being forced into a statewide mandate.

Committee members asked Sheriff Marco and other stakeholders to provide written comments clarifying the tax-assessment mechanics, asset disposition rules and other implementation details. No formal motion or vote on S255 was taken during the session; the committee recessed and is scheduled to reconvene at 11:15 a.m. to take up S206 on early childhood-educator licensure.

The hearing continued to emphasize accountability: committee members repeatedly noted the value of annual reporting and short-term check-ins during the pilot so the Legislature can evaluate outcomes before deciding whether to repeal the sunset or permit expansion to additional counties.