Cities move forward on police contract

Faced with the possibility of cities starting their own police departments, Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder has found a way to keep those cities' leaders happy with county police coverage.

Winder says he will give five cities equitable police coverage and some local control through one big contract. The cities that hire the sheriff's office for police services would be governed by the contract. On Tuesday, the sheriff's Law Enforcement Administrative Control Board, which includes the five mayors, voted to move forward with the new unified contract.

In the past, the sheriff has had to negotiate with each individual city, which often caused uneven police coverage in cities, with one city sending deputies to another during crises, if the other city hadn't paid for enough deputies.

The contract will cover police services in Holladay, Cottonwood Heights, Riverton, Bluffdale, Herriman and unincorporated Salt Lake County. Winder scheduled a meeting in mid-June to negotiate details of the contract.

If the sheriff doesn't follow the board's recommendations or if the sheriff doesn't submit his budget to the board, the cities can pull out within six months, according to a draft copy of the contract.

Local control of police services is what most cities want. The five city mayors and county officials worked for months on the possibility of starting a county-wide police department after Taylorsville and Draper stopped contracting with the sheriff's office for police services and started their own respective police forces instead.

The county-wide police department idea died after Winder insisted he could give the cities what they want with a new contract. The last thing county leaders want is 16 individual police agencies across the valley, Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said.

Now, cities will get local control through the Law Enforcement Administrative Control Board, which oversees the sheriff's office's budget, personnel and procedural issues, and also gives strong input on operations, as well as the new contract.

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