Communities across Washington County are set to increase their spending on law enforcement after signing contracts to pay for the addition of a 12th deputy in the area.

Washington County’s law enforcement budget has followed an unusual model since the ‘70s, with county funds paying directly for some officers while annual contracts, largely with city governments, cover the rest.

Washington County Sheriff Jared Schneider said the method was popular in the contracted communities, which have poured growing amounts of money into it in recent years.

“I met with Wellman, Kalona and Riverside two years ago to evaluate their law enforcement… and just did a really good evaluation of what contract law enforcement is,” Schneider said. “This year we brought representatives from the rest of the contract towns into our group and brought them up to date on what we did two years ago, reviewed everything, and that’s what made the group decide that we were going to add another deputy in fiscal year ‘22.”

Riverside and Wellman agreed to $34,310 and $24,795 increases, respectively, each of which represents a 35% increase from fiscal year 2021. Kalona took a bigger step, adding a whopping $57,115 to last year’s bill, a jump of over 40%.

Despite the hefty price tag, Schneider emphasized the plan’s support in the affected communities.

“There’s nobody that hasn’t supported what we’re trying to do with our staffing numbers,” Schneider said. “Obviously for a dollar amount, some of these communities have some concerns but they still have voted in favor of the new contract with the understanding that we’re going to look at it every year and continue to evaluate.”

The formula to determine the cost of contract law enforcement in each community is gradually changing. Schneider said fiscal year 2022 was the beginning of a five-year plan to phase out the number of police calls per city from the contract price formula.

“One of my main goals this year was to get rid of calls for service in the formula,” he said during his report at the Feb. 16 Riverside City Council meeting. “That’s encouraging people not to call, and I don’t know if that’s the right way to look at the service we provide.”

Schneider said the effect of the change on pricing was unclear, but a non-issue.

“It was pretty unanimous across the group that they didn’t feel having calls for service in the funding formula was beneficial,” he said. “We’re working 24/7. We’re out there in their communities, doing things, whether we’re getting calls or not.”

Although the plan comes on the heels of nationwide protests around police budgets over the summer, Schneider said it met few political complications.

“That wasn’t even in the picture two years ago when we started this conversation about what we needed to do to look at the future of law enforcement in these towns and in Washington County,” he said. “We saw some activity, I would say, but obviously not to the extent of the Johnson County area, and we dealt with those at the time and we really haven’t seen anything beyond those… We aren’t looking at our law enforcement the same way as Johnson County looks at theirs.”