DUBOISTOWN, Pa. -- One community in Lycoming County is getting help from its neighbor. Starting next year, South Williamsport will share its police force with the Borough of Duboistown.
Both South Williamsport and Duboistown struck a deal to share police services at a council meeting on Monday night. The deal will add three times the police force to the borough of Duboistown.
"Patrol services, specific traffic details, detective and investigative services, you know we bring a full-service capacity when it comes to a police department to their borough," said Steven Capelli, the South Williamsport borough manager and director of public safety.
Currently, the Duboistown police department has only two on-duty officers. With only two patrolmen, Pennsylvania State Police are servicing the community for more than 70 hours each week, which can cause response time issues.
"In many cases that PSP response, as one could imagine because of the large patrol area that they have here in northcentral Pennsylvania, was 30 minutes or more sometimes," Capelli said.
Duboistown will pay almost $120,000 a year for the new policing service.
"We were able to put together an agreement that requires them to pay not anything more than they are paying now for fulltime, 24 hour day, 7 days per week coverage," Capelli explained.
The police station in Duboistown will not be going anywhere. The South Williamsport Police Department will use it as a substation and keep two officers at the building.
South Williamsport will also be retaining the Duboistown chief of police.
"I will be playing a dual role with the South Williamsport Police Department. I will be working as a part administrator and part police officer," said Duboistown Police Chief Norm Hager.
The South Williamsport Police Department will have full jurisdiction of Duboistown starting on January 1, 2020.