Two Sussex County towns that had been discussing unifying their departments will not have one police force after all.
Last month, officials in Frankford and Dagsboro held town meetings to discuss the possibility of combining their police forces
"What it would afford us is proactive patrols when we don’t currently have those in the wee hours of the morning," said Dagsboro Police Chief Floyd Toomey,
Toomey led the push for unification. But Frankford Councilman Marty Presley says the idea was too expensive.
Toomey says there were some significant costs associated with the plan.
"The large ticket items are the salaries for two officers would be $87,360. The health insurance for the officer would be $22,235 and the pension requirement would be $11,811. [That would be] a total of $121,406,” said Toomey.
Frankford would have had to absorb that cost since Dagsboro’s budget is already set.
Chief Toomey says he’s NOT upset, but is disappointed because he feels the towns would have mutually benefited from unification.
