Police chiefs who were interviewed for an article in last Sunday’s Butler Eagle weren’t reluctant to express doubt about regionalization of police services in this county.

And they were correct. Regionalization isn’t likely to happen on any front here anytime soon.

However, acknowledgment of that fact doesn’t mean communities shouldn’t watch for changing possibilities on that front.

Regionalization does make sense for some places, such as with communities served by the Northern Regional Police Department in Allegheny County. As Callery Chief Dave Watts observed, communities in that regional setup have parity in the sense that their tax millage and police salaries are similar.

Regionalization proposals often are scuttled due to big differences in police budgets, officers’ pay and benefits, and the amount of local tax revenue collected. A big payment for regional police protection by a small or sparsely populated municipality is unlikely.

However, as last Sunday’s article showed, there are workable options outside of regionalizing police protection.

As reported in Sunday’s article, Middlesex and Penn townships have entered into a partnership under which each municipality’s police department is authorized to answer 911 calls within the other’s borders if one of the departments has no one on duty.

In many cases that might result in a quicker response than having to summon the state police, who might not have anyone in the vicinity.

The fact is that the state police sometimes are spread thin in the county, and in situations when a number of state police units are needed in one location, the response times for incidents outside of that location are made much more challenging for troopers.

Watts made a good point:

“We can’t survive individually. The only way to survive is collectively.”

That’s why mutual-aid agreements are so popular and workable. They enable police from one municipality to back up another, when needed.

Also among those acknowledging the unlikelihood of regional police coverage in this county are Butler Township Chief Gary Garman and Butler Chief Tim Fennell.

Garman was emphatic in his assessment that “a regional force won’t happen around here.” With no possibility of a merger of the city and township, despite benefits that each might accrue under such a larger-municipality setup, residents of the two communities would not be open to combining the important function, fearing that one or the other would reap greater advantages from the agreement..

The old saying about not trying to fix something that isn’t broken applies here. For the most part, police service in this county is adequate, and there is no urgency regarding regionalization.

But communities must nevertheless remain cognizant of changing police needs and act to meet those needs.