While the state supplemental budget that was signed into law on April 22 includes more funding for the Maine State Police that could help beef up rural patrol coverage in the state, including Washington County, the additional amount was cut significantly during the legislative process. That cut in the funding proposal means that the state police will not be changing their current agreement with the Washington County Sheriff's Office, with the pullback in state police rural patrol coverage last summer straining the ability of the sheriff's office to handle all of the calls and complaints it is now receiving.
      With several bill proposals to fund more rural patrol coverage being killed during the legislative session, Chris Gardner, chair of the Washington County commissioners, says, "The failure of the Maine legislature to yet again address the well-founded needs of the Maine State Police is extremely disheartening but sadly is not unbelievable. The legislature has a long history of failing to address the needs of rural Maine in all areas, and this session showed that nothing has changed in Augusta. In a year of record tax receipts to the State of Maine, the fact that rural Maine remains left behind is an eye-opener."
      "As a result, the tax shift from state coffers to local property taxes will only continue to grow, as someone has to be responsible enough to address the basic needs of Washington County," he adds, referencing the increase in the county tax burden to fund the sheriff's office.
      Gardner questions why the state government continues to disregard the needs of rural Maine. "In times of record tax receipts by the state, we have never paid as much as a society as we do today ever in our existence, but we close nursing homes, schools are under-funded, state law enforcement services are cut, there aren't enough ambulances in rural Maine and fire departments are over-regulated, aging and dependent on volunteers alone. Adding to all of that, they tried to cut road funding, so it begs but one question: In these record tax times, what is our government spending the money on?"
      Governor Janet Mills' supplemental budget had included $5 million for hiring 32 more state trooper positions. Lt. Michael Johnston, the northern field troop commander for the Maine State Police, says, "Those additional positions would have helped us maintain our current call-sharing agreements and allowed us to reestablish our call-sharing agreement with the Washington County Sheriff's Office."
      However, during the budget review and approval process the funding was reduced to cover only 16 positions. Johnston says, "We are grateful for the legislative support and the awarding of the additional positions; however, it falls short of what we would have needed to bolster the current agreement with the sheriff's office."
      Johnston does point out that the state police continue to have a resource agreement with the sheriff's office, "whereby we provide rural policing and specialized law enforcement services in the county, and we are also responsible for the investigation of all fatal motor vehicle crashes. We would be open to entering into a call-sharing agreement in the future with Washington or other counties, provided we have the necessary manpower to staff these agreements."
      The funding through the supplemental budget was not the only effort to boost rural patrol coverage during the past legislative session. Senator Marianne Moore had proposed bills to provide $200,000 a year for two county sheriff's deputies and $400,000 a year for four dispatchers, but the proposals were rejected by the Legislative Council in November. The additional positions were initially included in the 2024 budget proposal for the county, but the county budget committee had scaled back that proposal to fund only one additional sheriff's deputy and two additional dispatchers.
      Another measure, LD 630, would have funded more law enforcement officers in rural parts of the state, including Washington County, but it was not recommended by the legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee because of a change that was made in the bill concerning the source of funding. An additional bill, LD 2109, would have directed the state police to maintain their rural patrol services in all counties of the state at no less than the 2020 staffing levels. That bill, though, was amended to only fund rural patrol services in Androscoggin County.
      With the reduction in state police patrol coverage beginning last July, Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis estimated, in an interview last January, that the sheriff's office now will be handling about 3,000 additional calls a year that were previously covered by the state police. In 2022, the sheriff's office handled between 7,000 and 8,000 complaints; in 2023 the number increased to 9,557, with the state police helping to cover the calls until early July. This year Curtis expects the number will be well over 10,000.
      Of the need for more law enforcement officers in the county, Gardner had noted in his testimony in favor of LD 630, "The rural drug issue remains our biggest fight. Criminals know we lack resources and have set up shop in rural Maine. So much so that recently the facility with the most people incarcerated for homicide-related offenses in Maine other than the Maine State Prison was the Washington County Jail."
      In his testimony he noted that in the 1990s there was a 50/50 call-sharing agreement between the state police and the sheriff's office. That was reduced to one-third coverage by the state police a decade ago. This past year state police rural patrols were diminished even more, although the agency does provide assistance with its specialized teams. Gardner observed, "The state has a responsibility to fund rural patrol, and the only mechanism is the state police." However, the state has under-funded state police rural patrol for 40 years, with no increase in funding for patrol troopers since 1977.