Lansford has decided to move forward with a study to look at the possibility of regionalizing police departments.

Borough Councilman Martin Ditsky this week addressed Council regarding the idea.

“We had a meeting with (council members) Jay Doyle, Jennifer Staines, and myself, together with members of the Nesquehoning Borough Council, about the regionalization of our police departments,” Ditsky said.

He asked for a resolution to have the PA Department of Community & Economic Development do a study on the proposal.

Ditsky emphasized that borough council is not moving ahead with anything until the study is completed.

Last March Carbon County District Attorney Michael S. Greek asked Panther Valley communities to consider a study on a regional police department.

Before becoming the district attorney, Greek had served as the solicitor for both Summit Hill and Lansford, as well as Coaldale. A prior regionalization study included Coaldale with Lansford and Summit Hill. Coaldale is located in Schuylkill County.

He encouraged boroughs to “reach out to your neighboring municipal leaders to consider regionalization of police forces.”

He wrote, “The benefits of regionalization include improvement in uniformity and consistency of enforcement; coordination of law enforcement services; recruitment; distribution and deployment of police personnel; training and personnel efficiency; management and supervision; improved specialization of services; greater accessibility to grants and reduction in overall costs, Greek said.

“As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of Carbon County, I cannot stress how critical the need for regionalization is at the present time. Many of our local departments lack sufficient personnel to even consider shifts let alone the ability to properly investigate reported incidents.”

Some of the local police departments have reported it is difficult to attract police officers and to keep them.

In other police business, a motion was made to begin the preliminary application process to determine the feasibility of moving the police pension fund from Girard Management to the Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement System.

“Our police pension is losing money hand over foot,” Council President Bruce Markovich said. “We lost $220,000 last year. If we lost another $100,000 this year, we’ll be insolvent.”

Council is currently paying out around $62,000 to those on the pension right now.

Lansford Borough is still accepting applications for full and part time police officers. Applications are available online at http://www.boroughoflansford.com/ or at the borough office at 1 W Ridge Street, Lansford. Call 570-645-3900.