KANAWHA,IA-It's a sign of the times as communities look to cut costs where they can.
Because of those financial concerns - there is extra attention being focused on Kanawha - and how much is being spent on their police department.
Residents asked the city to look into other ways to keep their community safe.
What they are looking at is contracting their law enforcement services with the Hancock County Sheriff's Department.
The city and county officials crunched the numbers and discovered that option may not be as cost-effective as some would think.
City governments are always looking to keep their costs down, but a plan brought up by some folks in Kanawha might not save as much money as first thought and actually do more harm than good.
Mayor Terry Johnson says, "One of our fine citizens here in town had brought up the issue he thought that the city was paying too much for their, our police department."
The city's budget for the department is about 80 thousand dollars a year.
They have a full time chief of police and a few part time officers.
Johnson believes the system they have now works and is as cost effective as it can be.
But the city did look at some ways to improve it.
Johnson says, "We had a meeting the other night with Sheriff Scott Dodd and he presented it to the council plus the concerned citizens of what the cost would actually be for him to provide us with the same amount of service."
When they added it up. It would actually cost just as much if not a little more to have the Hancock County Sheriffs Department take over. Plus they would lose some of the services the now have."
Sheriff Dodd says, "I told them that if I was going to take over they are going to lose some things. They are going to lose some local control. They're going to lose some response time to call."
He says he took a look at Kanawha’s police budget and the currents costs are pretty similar to his.
He also believes having a full time police department in the city helps with safety.
Dodd says, "I think the citizens like having their own officer in town. I think it can be a deterrent for crime."
Johnson says, "We have local control this way and better response time and it just works for us."
