VALHALLA, N.Y. Although Pleasantville Village Mayor Peter Scherer announced that the village will stick with its own police department, Mount Pleasant Town Supervisor Joan Maybury is not closing the door on potentially consolidating services.
Whether it be consolidating our dispatching or our court systems, there must be some way that we can save some money by sharing services, Maybury said Wednesday in regards to sharing the towns services with Pleasantville.
Scherer announced that after 18 months of negotiations, Pleasantville for the time being will stick with its own 19-member police department. The department operates within the village on a $3.1 million budget. Pleasantville was also in discussion to enter a merger with the Westchester County Police. Scherer said that both options provided both a lack of savings and service to their residents.
Maybury said once the county stepped in to discuss a merger with Pleasantville, talks between the village and town concluded. Maybury said the decision to merge the two forces could be difficult to negotiate.
We are always open to discussing a consolidation but any time you consolidate like that it means a reduction in personnel for one side or the other, which is a hard discussion that would need to be made, Maybury said. But I think both chiefs would be open to consolidating some of their forces.
The Mount Pleasant Police Department has a staff of 42 employees and operates on a $5.3 million budget.
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