Chapman Township to Survey Voters on Potential Expansion of Renovo Police Services
From Staff Reports
CHAPMAN TOWNSHIP – An unofficial exit survey will be asked to be voluntarily completed at the Chapman Township polling station as supervisors hope to gauge their constituents’ interest in the future relationship with Chapman residents and the Renovo Police Department.
Renovo Mayor Gene Bruno was behind the potential hiring of a new full time police officer that would lead to seven day week coverage by the RPD for residents of Renovo and Chapman Township.
This would include signing a new officer to a five-year contract. The candidate -who is known at this time to officials-, would go to cadet training next May before graduating and being sworn into the Renovo force in November. Bruno explained that the potential officer would initially take just $18 an hour.
A grant is in place that would cover 75% of the officers’ training at the academy. Chapman Township, which paid $26,000 in coverage in 2024, will be paying $32,000 in 2025, with $6,000 of that going to pay for the officers training at the academy.
Once the cadet’s training is complete and they begin patrolling full time in 2026 is where the question being asked of extending coverage becomes most relevant. Renovo Borough at that time would ask Chapman to pay $60,000 a year under the premise that they would be receiving more service which includes coverage over a larger area than if the RDP would stay in the borough of Renovo. Chapman has a much larger square mile area opposed to Renovo including the Bucktail School Campus.
For their part, to this point, the Renovo Borough will have paid approximately $156,000 for the current two officer system in 2024, which if you include Chapman’s contributions of $26,000 the total police budget will come in somewhere between $190,000 and $198,000 for fiscal year 2024.
Chapman officials stated they cannot predict what the 2026 budget will look like at this time, therefore are not sure if the additional coverage would affect tax rates.
