WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The move to cut police budgets in the Upper Valley is spreading, as activists in Hartford are calling on the Selectboard to cut spending on law enforcement and hire a wellness coordinator who could respond to social-service calls.
Some Hartford residents raised the issue during a Selectboard meeting last week where the fiscal year 2022 budget was discussed.
Hartford resident Jack Peisch, a teacher at Hartford Middle School, told board members there’s an “imbalance of funding” when it comes to the police department and social services. Hartford should focus more funds on supporting the latter, he said.
“It makes me cringe to hear the stories of my unhoused friends and students when I know the support for housing that could be funded with the budgets of both the pool and police,” Peisch said, referencing a controversial $3.3 million community pool bond, which board members have sent back to Town Meeting for a second vote this March.
Board members have discussed the idea of a wellness coordinator position — one of the social services pushed for at the meeting by some residents — for more than a year, and initially considered hiring a nurse who could help residents with physical health issues.
They now may broaden the position to include someone who could help people in crisis, including mental health and homelessness crises, to get access to community resources, board member Emma Behrens said at the meeting.
A Valley Newsanalysis in June of six municipal police budgets in the Upper Valley found that Hartford’s police budget had increased by 52% in the past decade, from $2.2 million to $3.3 million, and that the police share of general fund spending had gone from 18.1% to 19.6%. Hartford’s police department has 23 full-time officers and one civilian support staffer.
Hartford’s not alone in facing questions about reducing police funding and focusing support on social services. Following Black Lives Matter protests over the summer, many activist groups across the country began to call for defunding the police and diverting taxpayer money to other programs.
Last week, the Upper Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America unveiled a proposal to slice the Lebanon Police Department budget in half by 2022, and divert funds toward social service groups and a full-time wellness position. They plan to bring the proposal to city officials next month.
Hartford Selectboard members are in the early stages of planning the town budget, and have asked each department to prepare three proposals: a flat budget with no increases, a budget cut by 5% from the previous year, and a budget that’s decreased by 10%, Selectboard member Kim Souza said Monday. The departments are expected to begin presenting their proposals next month.
Though each department will consider reductions, some members of the public who spoke last week addressed the police budget specifically, with Hartford resident Janice Chen asking for “at least” a 5% to 10% reduction in police spending. Following the meeting last week, Behrens and Souza agreed to work on gathering input from the police and fire chiefs on the issue, and drafting a new job description for the wellness coordinator.
Much of the push for a wellness coordinator came from people who spoke at the meeting, including activist Asma Elhuni, a former Hartford resident who said police are often not trained to respond to issues of homelessness and mental health, and can traumatize people who are seeking help.
“Every day that there isn’t a coordinator is another day that people are robbed of the possibility of getting the proper response to their crisis,” Elhuni said.
Chen said the issue is especially pressing now because the “housing crisis will be particularly exacerbated as we move into winter,” and she urged the board to act with “urgency.”
Selectboard board members had varied responses to the idea, including what a wellness coordinator or wellness department could look like, and how the position would operate with other emergency responders.
Board member Joe Major said he would like to get buy-in from dispatchers, Hartford Police Chief Phil Kasten and Hartford Fire Chief Scott Cooney before creating the new department.
Behrens agreed in part, saying it will take “a long time to develop a third response branch.” But she said she understood the immediate need for a responder equipped in handling social service calls, and suggested the town consider hiring someone short-term.
Selectboard member Alicia Barrow suggested making police a part of whatever wellness program the town settles on.
She said she doesn’t want people to misinterpret the need for a wellness coordinator as a lack of support for police, or a desire to defund the police. Instead, Barrow said the town should look at training existing police and other first responders to be more “wellness-oriented.”
“We want to support our first responders in a transition to something that is more of a wellness department,” she said.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.
Correction
Asma Elhuni moved from Hartford to Leba non three months ago. An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified where she is now a resident.