Sheriff is the king of the law enforcement mountain

     By voting 4-0 to approve a memorandum of understanding that recognizes the sheriff's department as the primary law enforcement agency in Carroll County, the board of commissioners are keeping their campaign promises.
     If Sheriff Ken Tregoning was more demonstrative, he would be kicking his heels and high-fiving all around; this is what he has wanted since running for the office years ago.
     It was of the highest priority: He wanted to win some game of King of the Mountain that apparently has its roots in his own career as a State Trooper. Those close to him told me it was personal, but it was professional, too. He truly believes it is in the best interests of the county to phase out the Resident Trooper program that the state police have had since the 1970s.
     I agree with him that it was time to phase out the Resident Trooper program. In my first term as commissioner, Perry Jones and I led support for increased funding, staffing and responsibilities for the sheriff's department. Commissioner Julia Gouge was more reluctant, but it was not a point of contention on the board. Perry and I initially thought it would be natural to give primary status to the sheriff's department, but something in the dialog, as it developed, gave me pause, and I wanted to get more information, get more public input, perhaps put together a study commission, to weigh the alternatives.
     One of the alternatives was creation of a county police force. No official action was taken to move in that direction; just suggestions that while we were beefing up the sheriff's resources and capabilities, we should make sure that was the best way to go for the citizens.
     At the urging of the sheriff, we invested considerable money into a process of accreditation that was intended to prove the sheriff and his deputies were the equal of any top police force in the country.
     A member of the Carroll County Taxpayers' Association called me to protest the building up of the sheriff's department. He said it would cost more than the state police resident trooper program. In a long phone conversation, I was able to show the caller that what was once a bargain for county taxpayers -- full-service troopers at 75 percent of the cost of one -- had changed over the years to where we were spending 125 percent of the cost of a fully-qualified and equipped deputy, one trained, by the way, by the same instructors those training cadets at the state police academy.
     The caller was not impressed with the facts. Instead, he changed the form of his complaint. He said the state police were simply more prestigious, and worth keeping even at the extra costs. It was just the beginning of my education that the public was not necessarily interested in objective analysis of the pros and cons of one kind of policing over another. State Police had their fans, the Sheriff (and the Old English concept of a sheriff as the top public official in the kingdom) had his supporters.
     It soon became apparent that the discussion, which at first had almost no coverage in the local papers, had spread beyond the boundaries of Carroll County. We began to hear from judges in the West, from sheriffs across the continent, and not inconsequentially, from the National Sheriff's Association.
     I was beginning to realize that this was more a clash of ideologies on a national scale than a local dialog on what form of police protection would best serve county residents.
Indeed, I became convinced that politics, national and local, and ego would supersede the public interest, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary.
     I  believed, naively, that what mattered first was professional competence, and second, the costs.  What mattered most to others was their own status, future funding, and the benefits of having the top job. Supporters for one side or the other displayed interests in bragging rights about their own role in influencing the eventual outcome.
     The resident trooper program was being used by the state police as a special training program in community policing. It was a desirable credential to add to a resume for those who wanted to rise through the ranks of the state police. Best of all, what had started as a subsidy to the county had morphed over the years to a benefit to the state police that was funded by the county. Resident troopers originally were intended to live in the county and patrol the areas near their homes. By the time we were taking a hard look at alternatives, resident troopers no longer were required to live here, and those assigned here were regularly temporarily reassigned to duties as far away as the Eastern Shore. We were still paying their salaries.
     Sheriff Tregoning was appreciative of our funding of his department and building his program -- until he realized that the alternative of a county police force might be the recommendation of an independent study commission. At that point, it became a textbook study in political craftsmanship, ending with the delegation, at Tregoning's request, getting a law passed in Annapolis that temporarily suspended the constitutional authority of Carroll County commissioners to make any changes in local policing. The law applied to no other Maryland county, and would expire at the end of the terms of the incumbent commissioners.
     Long before that blatant political power play, I was having reservations about how much fiscal control elected commissioners -- that board or any that followed it -- would have if the sheriff continued to get everything he wanted.
     His support staff was being increased at unprecedented rates, and he was increasing certain salaries, making promotions without following seniority rules, and seeking further increases in funding that were being turned down as excessive.
     We began looking at the huge increases in sheriff's budgets in other counties where the sheriff had been designated primary law enforcement. It seemed unsustainable, and the commissioners and executives were telling us, off line, that the sheriffs were popular because they were not accountable for the effect that department growth had on the local tax rate.
     We wanted more dialog, but it was cut off. The issue was dead as soon as the sheriff asked for and was granted special status that effectively took the matter out of the hands of the fiscal authorities of the county.
     I see that the sheriff has also apparently got what he wanted for replacement patrol cars. We had tried to have talks with him on the viability of changing from the bigger and more costly Ford Interceptors to the vehicle that more and more police forces are using, either the Dodge or the Chevy Impala.
     We had learned that the retiring cars, instead of being returned to the county, which holds the titles, was being awarded by the sheriff to his growing force of auxiliary officers to drive. Whether that practice is good for the taxpayers or not was never allowed any real discussion.
     Will the sheriff's department provide professional policing?  Absolutely?
    Was there a better, more efficient way, with more accountability for public spending? We will never know for sure. I think, based on what I have learned (aside from lessons in political clout) that the controls of a civilian panel would be better for cost management, but perhaps not as much as seemed possible at one time.
     After all, there is politics in police forces, too.