Smart Talk: Police department consolidations save money? Character education in PA schools

What to look for on Smart Talk Thursday, October 2, 2014:

The biggest expense many Pennsylvania municipalities have is their police departments. That’s even though 72% of the state’s 986 municipal police departments have 10 or fewer police officers.

So, it’s no surprise that almost 1,300 municipalities get full-time police coverage from the Pennsylvania State Police without directly compensating state police.

There are another 34 regional police departments in Pennsylvania.

Under direction from the State House of Representatives, the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee recently compiled and released a report on police consolidation.

The report found municipalities may not save that much money from hooking up with a regional police force, but they get better coverage. It also concluded there’s resistance to consolidation from smaller municipalities who don’t want to lose their control.

Appearing on Thursday’s Smart Talk to put the report into context are Phil Durgin, Executive Director and Patricia Berger, Senior Counsel for the Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.

The committee also just released a report on character education (teaches universal values like caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others) in the state’s schools and we’ll address that topic as well.