Cost Allocation in Consolidated Police Agencies

• In Event: Balancing Cost and Quality of Police Service: A Multi-Site Assessment of Police Consolidation

Abstract

Consolidating law enforcement agencies is a complex and daunting task—one that involves a number of stakeholders. Among the more thorny issues is how costs for the new agency are to be allocated. There are three principle approaches: 1) in some cases a community will contract for service from another jurisdiction—typically the county sheriff—and the cost is based on direct and indirect costs for officers; 2) some communities form a new unit of government (e.g. a regional police department) and member communities are charged for the services they receive from the regional agency; and 3) some consolidated agencies operate under an agreement between two or more units of government to share the cost of providing services to those communities. Typically, there is a formula that determines the share of costs borne by each community. After describing these alternative approaches we examine how the choice of costing mechanism may affect the performance of the consolidated agency.

Author

• Alexander Weiss, Michigan State University