Winfield police chief to retire

Winfield police Chief Frank Bellisario plans to retire in March after spending his entire 30-year law enforcement career with the department.

Bellisario's departure, effective March 4, was announced Monday in a statement issued by the village.

“I will certainly miss working for Winfield, but I am looking forward to retirement,” Bellisario said in the statement. He receives an annual salary of $110,000.

Bellisario has been with the Winfield Police Department since graduating from the police academy in 1981. He rose through the ranks holding a variety of positions, including patrol officer, detective, sergeant and administrative sergeant. In 2006, he served as interim chief before being appointed to the job permanently.

Village Manager Curt Barrett said Bellisario's retirement will be “a loss” for the department.

“He takes with him a great deal of organizational memory and just all of the experience he's had in this community over 30 years,” Barrett said. “He's been valuable to me. He knows the history.”

Barrett said Bellisario managed the department through various challenges, including a reduction in staff. The 18-member department is down by six patrol officers compared to where it was about seven years ago.

Bellisario, who served as a juvenile officer during his early years, ran an open gym program for the Winfield school system. He also developed the village's Internet Investigation Unit, child identification program, I-Search program, and records management system, officials said.

In recent years, Bellisario's computer skills have helped the village in other ways.

“He somewhat wears the hat of our in-house IT guy,” Barrett said. “He helps out any department when it's having computer problems.”

Deputy Chief Stacy Reever will become acting chief once Bellisario retires, officials said. She has been with the department since 1989.

Barrett said the process for finding a permanent chief hasn't been determined by the village administration.