Lock Haven looks to cut back on daily police coverage hours

LOCK HAVEN, PA – The City of Lock Haven has historically provided 24-hour, round-the-clock police protection. That scope of coverage may be about to change, based on information at City Council’s meeting Monday night.

City Manager Greg Wilson shared with council information on the status of negotiations on a new contract with the city police bargaining unit, the Lock Haven Police Officers Association. That pact is to expire at the end of this year. Wilson revealed that among items placed on the table by the city is a proposal for all current officers to convert from 8-hour to 10-hour shifts; this would, he wrote, “accommodate the city’s change from 24-hour a day local police coverage to a 20-hour a day local coverage department.”

The manager said any calls in the remaining four hours each day would be handled by the state police as happens now, he noted, “in all our neighboring communities when they do not have police coverage.”

Such a move, Wilson told council, would create a reduction in taxpayer-funded city costs “in our community already struggling with 37% of the city’s real estate exempt from contributing taxes” to “services we all require.” These services include, he said, 13-hour a day fulltime fire coverage and 12 fulltime police officers. He did not detail the amount of prospective savings if the reduced hours of protection were put in place.

The city manager also shared a recent report from the Pennsylvania Economy League which said the city is “teetering financially.” That report said the city has used asset sales, fund transfers, debt refunding, part-time staff and “precious” fund balance dollars to “plug holes and avoid property tax increases.”

Wilson said it is the city’s goal “to retain as much daily police coverage as it can afford in an atmosphere of skyrocketing inflation.”

The city manager said several meetings have been held with the police union this year and city negotiators are currently waiting for a union counterproposal. Meanwhile, he said, in case there is no agreement, arbitration has been scheduled for Jan. 19 of next year.

Council members listened to the manager’s report but offered no comment.