With Sleepy Hollow out, what about Carpentersville?

Amid all the talk of consolidating police services between East Dundee, West Dundee and Sleepy Hollow, Carpentersville has been out of the picture.

On Thursday, Carpentersville Village President Ed Ritter said he’s interested in joining the conversation, as inclusion in the consolidation would augment the relationship Carpentersville already has with the Dundees and hopefully save money at the same time.

They, along with Sleepy Hollow, all share police and fire dispatch services with Quadcom, and under mutual aid agreements, they also assist one another in emergencies.

“We back up East and West Dundee and they back us up when needed,” Ritter said. “If we made it a little more formal, I don’t know how that could hurt any of us. The door is open and we’ll wait to hear if there is any interest.”

A study, compiled by Arlington Heights-based WRB LLC Consulting and Management Services, details a police consolidation between the Dundees and Sleepy Hollow, all of whom are in the Metropolitan Mayor’s Caucus that helped fund the study.

Sleepy Hollow announced last week that it no longer wanted to be part of the conversation because the consolidation would only save the village $134,800 annually, an amount Village President Stephen Pickett said wasn’t enough to justify losing autonomy with its officers.

If a consolidation between East and West Dundee goes through, West Dundee would take the role of contract services provider because its services are the most advanced and its infrastructure is tied to the strongest tax base.

Initially, officers from East Dundee would be retained, but they would report to a chief based in West Dundee. As those officers leave, West Dundee would replace them.

The goal is to save money for the partners by using fewer managers, fewer facilities and fewer vehicles, while relying heavily on part-time staff. Because Carpentersville is part of a separate mayor’s caucus, it wasn’t included in the study, Ritter said.

West Dundee Village Manager Joe Cavallaro said that while his village would be willing to evaluate any option, Carpentersville’s addition would complicate matters with its size and unique service demands.

“It’s an easier estimate to look at three smaller communities merging under one umbrella than it is to look at … merging with an organization that’s more than three times the size,” Cavallaro said. “At the end of the day, it’s got to make sense from a service development standpoint. It’s got to save taxpayer dollars and at least maintain the services or the coverages that are out there now.”

According to 2009 population estimates from the U.S. Census, 38,020 people lived in Carpentersville, 8,015 in West Dundee, 3,712 in Sleepy Hollow and 3,149 in East Dundee.

Earlier this month, East Dundee trustees balked at the thought of losing autonomy as well. They are also concerned about coverage issues, how existing union contracts would fit into the model and they want evidence they’ll save the $655,927 that the study suggests.

“Contracted services is a more difficult thing for me because the folks in West Dundee will control police services,” East Dundee Village President Jerald Bartels said.

Bartels said he’d feel more comfortable if Carpentersville was involved in an arrangement where the departments established a stand-alone entity that each town paid into for police service, much like the Quadcom arrangement that includes the Dundees, Sleepy Hollow, Carpentersville and South Barrington.

“That was something that was attractive to me,” Bartels said.

It’s too early to say how Carpentersville would benefit from the move, financially or otherwise. Since its police force is much bigger than the others, the question is whether it become the lead police agency, instead of West Dundee. Carpentersville also has a crime rate that’s more similar to Elgin than it is to the Dundees.

“They’d be the biggest player and the most different,” said William Balling, who compiled the study.

The pros and cons surrounding Carpentersville’s inclusion in the consolidation would likely require another study, one that includes all three towns, Carpentersville Police Chief David Neumann said. He would rather wait to see whether the merger between the Dundees actually goes forward.

“If they want to pursue a study with us, then we’ll take a look at that,” Neumann said.