Lawmakers have filed a bill in the Maryland General Assembly that would grant Montgomery County the authority to merge their county and park police forces, a move long championed by County Executive Ike Leggett but widely resisted despite deep-rooted fiscal pains. If approved, it would lay the groundwork for Leggett to include the plan in his proposed budget to the County Council, which will attempt to tackle an expected $300 million shortfall in coming months. The county executive needs approval from the state because the Park Police serves both Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. “It makes perfect sense,” said Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield. “If we can’t do this, we can’t do any restructuring. I think there are a lot of people who are going to come around on this.”
Leggett’s office is studying millions of dollars worth of reorganizations and even eliminating county agencies, including scrapping commissions devoted to women’s and human rights issues.
Last year, Leggett proposed the same police merger, saying it would save roughly $2 million. But the effort was thwarted by the council, worried the shift would diminish public safety — the Park Police has about 90 officers who patrol one-tenth of county land.
“It’s a fundamentally bad idea,” said Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, chairman of the public safety committee. “I think the result would be a reduction in both the quality and amount of service to park users.”
Amid recent budget struggles, workforce redundancies have become a popular topic in the county. But park officials counter that even a reduced proposal to merge just the two communication centers would be far from seamless, pointing to different job duties, union contracts and benefits packages for officers.
“[The consolidation would] cause operational problems for the Park Police that are not worth the modest potential for financial savings,” said Francoise Carrier, chairwoman of the Montgomery County Planning Board, which oversees area parks.
State legislators will hold a public hearing on the bill in coming weeks. However, council staff called any transition “premature” since so many questions remain about implementing the plan.
