Dorchester to look for police chief applicants

By Kevin O’Brien

Dorchester will be looking for a police chief as it tries for the second time to find the ideal candidate to keep its local village department going.

At its monthly meeting on March 10, trustees voted 5-2 to seek a new chief of police, as recommended by the village’s police committee. Trustees Daniella Schauer and Clem Klimpke voted against the motion after questioning whether the village really wants to keep its own department or not.

The police committee had previously chosen an applicant for a background check and other pre-employment exams in December, but that person was never hired. The applicant was one of two who showed up for job interviews in early December after eight people originally applied for the police officer’s position.

For now, the village continues to pay the Clark County Sheriffs Department for a deputy to patrol the village and provide law enforcement services after the retirement of police chief Gary Leichtman last summer.

Linda Baumann, chairman of the police committee, told the board last week that the committee is recommending a police chief in the hopes of getting someone with more experience.

Baumann said the average wage for a

See DORCHESTER/ Page 11 small village police chief in Wisconsin is $30 per hour, about $5 more than what Leichtman was making before he retired.

The village has had an annual police budget of roughly $115,000, with $75,000 budgeted for wages and $19,000 for fringe benefits, but that was with Leichtman’s wage at about $25 per hourly.

The idea of hiring the Colby-Abbotsford Police Department for police protection also resurfaced during last week’s conversation.

“If you go with Colby-Abbotsford, you get 24/7 coverage, you get a drug dog, you get an investigator,” Schauer said.

Based on conversations last fall between village president Kurt Schwoch and Colby-Abby chief Jason Bauer, hiring the CAPD would cost the village between $157,000 and $197,000 per year. The cost would be on the lower end if the extra officers who were hired took singleperson insurance plans.

Klimpke worried about the extra cost of hiring the CAPD but he also wondered if Dorchester would be able to find somebody to take the police chief’s position.

“The problem is, where are you going to find someone with the experience who wants to come to a small town like we have?” he said.

Klimpke also wondered how long the village was going to continue looking for someone to hire before considering CAPD as an option.

Trustee Keith Lageman said the police committee should be allowed to seek another round of applicants.

“I don’t think it does any harm letting them look for a chief,” he said. “We’re covered great right now. Why not pursue it and see what happens?”

“But if we’re not going to have a department, then it’s a waste of time,” Schauer responded.

A majority of the board sided with Lageman and voted to authorize the police committee to seek candidates.

Baumann also talked to the board about a list of items the village needs to purchase for the police department, such as a bulletproof vest, computer software and an exhaust fan for evidence storage, but no action was taken.

Shawn Bauer, one of the Clark County deputies who has been patrolling the village, offered board members some advice before they voted last Wednesday.

First and foremost, he emphasized the need for continuing some type of permanent law enforcement in the village.

“This community needs a police presence,” he said. “A lot of people have approached me and thanked me for being out there.”

Bauer said he would recommend the village hire a police chief rather than an officer, just because the chief would be directly accountable to the board, is likely to have more experience and would stick around longer.

“If you hire a police officer, it’s going to be tougher to keep that person around because they are paying higher wages (elsewhere),” he said.

However, Bauer said the village’s “number one option” may be to hire the CAPD, since Dorchester would then have access to an established administration, equipment and “tons of resources.”

“You guys are getting one heck of a good deal for 24-hour coverage, which is adding two police officers,” he said.

Still, he said it’s ultimately up to village officials to decide if they want to hire the CAPD.

“If you don’t want to go with that option, I think if you invest some thought into who you want to be your police chief, there’s probably the right candidate out there,” he said. “You can’t give up; you’ve got to gear your job description to the person who you want.”

Other business

_ The board held a brief joint meeting with the village’s planning commission to discuss a series of updates to the village’s Title 14 Land Division and Subdivision Code, which is part of an overhaul of Dorchester’s ordinance book.

Wayne Rau, chairman of the planning commission, told the board that an attorney spent about two hours at a recent meeting going over 162 pages of code revisions. He said most of them were updates needed to conform with state law.

A required public hearing was also held, but no comments were made, and the board approved the revisions during their regular meeting.

_ Jesse Furrer of Spectrum Insurance spoke to the board about a proposal to renew the village’s liability, property and auto insurance through the League of Wisconsin Municipalities. The annual premiums would total $43,431, an increase of $3,509 over the current rates.

No decision was made by board members, who wanted to know more about the cost of adding cybercrime insurance to their plan before voting on renewal. Cybercrime insurance would provide settlements of up to $1 million if computer hackers stole data kept by the village on employees and residents.

_ DPW Clint Penney said his crew recently had to fix three different water main breaks, but overall, winter-related expenses are down. He said they’ve only used about a quarter of the road salt they normally do so far this winter.

_ The board approved the purchase of a new Pierce Pumper truck for the Central Fire and EMT District, at a cost of $453,859. District chief Joe Mueller told the board that firefighters gave up on certain expensive options in order to get a more affordable truck for the district.

_ The board authorized new clerktreasurer Susan Ballerstein and deputy clerk-treasurer Christie Erikson to attend annual training at the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Institute July 12-16. They will be attending the training virtually, but the clerk’s office will still be closed those days.

_ The board scheduled the village’s open book review for Monday, April 19, from 1 to 3 p.m. and the board of review meeting on Monday, April 26, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.