JAY – Police responded to 5,225 requests for service in the past year, and the police chief doesn’t believe the department will be able to keep up the pace if a vacant patrol position is not financed in next year’s budget.

Surveys on town and school services were mailed out to taxpayers Monday.

The answers are expected to help town officials budget for next year.

Two of the questions address emergency dispatch services and police, both covered in the Police Department’s $914,000 budget this year.

The question that asks if people favor leaving a patrol position vacant with a savings of about $56,000 is giving him the greatest concern, police Chief Larry White Sr. said.

The average officer ratio per 1,000 population in New England is 2.4 and Jay is staffed at 1.4 per 1,000 people, he said.

The department has seven full-time patrol officers including the chief, but it is staffed at six with the retirement of an officer.

“We need to have our patrol division at full staff to continue services that we provide,” White said. “We still have the same number of complaints every day. Those are not going to go away.”

With the position vacant, it’s causing more of a workload for each officer including him, White said.

“We now have to prioritize which complaints get investigated first by seriousness of nature,” he said.

For example, if a harassment complaint comes in and it occurred an hour ago, and the officer is investigating a serious criminal mischief complaint, it may be sometime before the officer gets to the victim of the harassment complaint if it is not ongoing, he said.

“When we’re at full-staff it was a rare occasion when a complaint from a victim had to wait for service,” White said. “The response time at times is going to be slower.”

He believes investigations will be slowed, especially when police are active in the summer and handling a multitude of accidents in the winter.

“We’ll be much more limited,” White said. “We will not have an officer to put in the man-hours needed for those complaints.”

It could hinder officer safety, he said.

Right now, the overlap officer, the position now vacant, that usually works nights to early mornings, is the backup for the primary officer when he is on a complaint, White said.

The actual savings that is listed by elimination of that officer is not a completely true figure, he said, because a second officer needs to be on in the evening, especially on Fridays and Saturdays due to more complaints.

It means either overtime or paying a reserve officer, he said.

Another question asks people if they want to eliminate emergency police dispatch to have the service provided by Franklin County Sheriff’s Department for the town with a savings of about $154,710.

White said they’ve explored the option because the state is looking at regionalizing communication centers.

He understands that there would be a substantial savings if Franklin County provides the service, but it also means fewer services for residents.

There would be no more walk-in service during the evenings and weekends, he said.

Some people have come in at night petrified someone is following them in domestic situations and others come in with medical emergencies, he said.

A secretary will stay on to do paperwork, reports and other tasks.

He has been assured the county could handle Jay calls, White said, but on the officer side, it may generate some officer safety issues if radio traffic is high.

“Sometimes seconds are of the essence when officer safety is involved,” he said.