Montgomery County’s parks may be losing their police.
County Executive Ike Leggett is recommending merging the county’s park police force, which has about 90 officers, its own dispatch unit, and is responsible for policing 10 percent of county land, into the larger county police department.
Leggett said the move would save the county $2 million for the next fiscal year, which starts in July.
But the move is facing stiff opposition from the Montgomery side of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which oversees the police force.
“This proposal is not about saving money,” said Royce Hanson, county planning board chairman, in a letter to the County Council. “This is another attempt by [Leggett] to wrest power over the park system and park land.”
Park officials stressed that the park police is a specialized unit best equipped to handle park-specific issues, like controlling the deer population, backwoods patrolling, and deterring gang activity in parks. Without those officers, park officials said, the county’s well-used parks will suffer.
“Safety in parks will suffer, I can guarantee you that,” said Montgomery Park Police Chief Darien Manley. He said a similar consolidation in Baltimore had led to a drop in safety in the city’s parks.
Manley added that folding park police officers into the county’s force could have a large long-term costs, as overall compensation for county officers is generally higher.
The M-NCPPC has two separate park police forces, one that serves Montgomery and another that serves Prince George’s County.
County Police Chief Tom Manger said he didn’t think that parks would be unsafe under his department.
County staff have expressed serious doubt about whether a complicated merger can be completed quickly enough to have any savings during next fiscal year.
County Councilman Phil Andrews, who heads the county’s Public Safety Committee, chided Leggett for pushing for the plan with little advance warning.
“To say that it’s not ready for prime time is an understatement,” Andrews said. The County Council would have to approve the merger.
Leggett proposed the idea last week as part of a $200 million revised budget plan that came in response to lower-than-expected income-tax revenues that put the county’s budget gap at nearly $1 billion. His budget director, Joe Beach, said the county’s finances require aggressive cost-saving actions.
“There’s always going to be reasons to uphold the status quo,” Beach said.
