Norwich Police Chief Simon Keeling abruptly resigned last week, effective Sunday, June 5. This leaves the town, which is budgeted for a chief and three patrol officers, with just a single patrol officer and a community service officer. Here, Town Manager Rod Francis responds to some questions about the situation.

— Postings on the listserv suggest that Chief Keeling disagreed with the town’s direction on funding for the department. Is that accurate?

We don’t have a direct response to that post. The 2022 budget and the approved 2023 budget assumes a department made up of a Chief and three Patrol Officers (one at rank of sergeant). No decision has been made to alter this structure. The Norwich Police Department has not been fully staffed since late January 2021, when we had Chief Frank, then Sergeant Keeling and two Patrol Officers. Since then, we have consistently had two or more openings. This situation is not unique to Norwich. It is common to law enforcement agencies everywhere. For the past 16 months we have been advertising for our open positions. During that time, we have not had a viable candidate where offering a more generous salary/benefits offer could have been decisive. We are also bound by the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement which adds further complexity to the challenge of recruiting additional personnel in the current labor market. We are continuing to seek viable candidates for our open positions. We are also investigating other options for addressing our current staffing shortages in the Police Department, like the approach we took last winter when we faced staffing challenges in the Public Works Department.

— If I make things out correctly, the town now has two police officers, only one of whom can actually serve as a patrol officer. Is that right?

Correct: Officer Anna Ingraham is Officer in Charge (OIC). Officer Root is our Community Safety Officer (CSO). Upon successful completion of two classes for accreditation at the Police Academy, it will be possible for Officer Root to work independently as a Part-time Patrol Officer. One of those classes is scheduled for late June. We are pursuing solutions allowing him to complete the other class as soon as possible. He will need to successfully complete another 16 weeks of training at the Police Academy before he can serve as a full-time Patrol Office. We intend to fully support him through the training requirements with the hope that he will choose to continue in the Norwich Police Department.

— Where do things stand on planning for coverage after-hours and in emergencies?

Since Chief Keeling submitted his resignation, we have been in discussion with Vermont State Police (VSP) and towns in our mutual-aid area (Hartford, Hanover, Thetford) to arrive at a workable solution for coverage. It is expected that Officer Ingraham will be on-duty for forty hours a week, will be on call (but not at work) approximately four hours a day Monday through Friday, and will screen calls from Hartford Dispatch for some time each day to determine if these calls warrant an immediate VSP response or can wait till a normal shift. This is a similar arrangement that other towns currently have with VSP.

— And are there plans to study appropriate police staffing levels (by town panel or otherwise)? Because Norwich Police Department has regularly had one or more vacancies for full-time staff since 2018 and has not been fully staffed for more than 16 months, I would suggest that a review of public safety services is needed. The decision to do so would be made by the Selectboard. Knowing the challenges the Norwich Police Department was facing, the Selectboard asked the voters to approve funding for a public safety study. That funding was not approved, but community perception of the need for this work to be done may be changed by the current circumstances.