State's Budget Crisis Leads To Discussion In Madison About Shared Police Resources

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

MADISON, CT – Shared resources, or regionalism, has always been a conversation piece on the shoreline.

But the state’s budget crisis has moved the issue to more of the front burner lately.

At the most recent Board of Selectmen meeting in Madison, Selectman Al Goldberg told fellow selectman that the Madison Board of Police Commissioners had a lengthy discussion about regionalism – in other words shared resources such as personnel and equipment between more than one town - at its most recent meeting.

That discussion about potential “shared resources” Goldberg said was clearly instigated by the current budget crisis in Hartford, and the threat that state monies coming to more affluent towns in the state – such as Madison, Guilford, Branford, etc. – may be severely limited in the coming years.

Goldberg said that if and when police departments on the shoreline get real serious about sharing resources that is vitally important, in the eyes of the police commissioners in Madison – that “transparent discussions” about the matter be held by three different bodies.

Those bodies, Goldberg said, are the Board of Police Commissioners in each town, the police chiefs in each town, and the Boards of Selectmen and/or the first selectman in each town.

Goldberg said while nothing is in the cards, currently, on the regionalism agenda, if the state’s budget crisis and the impact that will have on towns doesn’t improve, the issue may be forced on towns such as Madison sooner than later.