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Jan. 20, 2010
By Lori Lindner
NORTH LIBERTY LEADER
lori@northlibertyleader.com
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Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek
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NORTH LIBERTY- The partnership between the North Liberty Police Department and the Johnson County Sheriff's Department is good for another fiscal year.
The city has contracted with the Sheriff's Department for police protection and radio dispatch service since the 1970s. Even with the addition of its own police department in 1999, North Liberty has continued to carry a contract with the Sheriff's Department for coverage.
The 2010-11 contract will give North Liberty 30 hours of patrolling by sheriff's deputies each week, or 1,560 hours annually, at a cost of $48,360 per year. Dispatch services cost the city up to $67,500 per year.
Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek attended the Dec. 22 North Liberty City Council meeting, as it is his practice to meet with each contracted municipality once each year to answer questions. Pulkrabek said North Liberty typically gets more hours of coverage than are contracted each year; by November, he said, the Sheriff's Department had already put in 1,565 hours on behalf of North Liberty.
"By the end of the year, you will have gotten approximately one month of law enforcement coverage free," Pulkrabek told the council. Though the official contract states the Sheriff's Department shall be paid for any hours in excess of the contracted amount, "We've never billed back for that. We've never even thought about it," noted Pulkrabek.
It averages out, Pulkrabek said, because the North Liberty Police Department also assists the Sheriff's Department on calls that are near North Liberty, and also on longer-term crime investigations.
When the countywide Joint Emergency Communications Center (JECC) goes online, with a target date of July, 2010, the dispatch portion of the contract will become unnecessary.
Council member Chris Hoffman asked how operation of the JECC would change law enforcement coverage for Johnson County cities.
"The biggest change you will see is a serious upgrade for Johnson County citizens and North Liberty," said Pulkrabek. "It will help the North Liberty Police Department, for example, if Iowa City has some type of serious crime, and (a suspect) flees from Iowa City, North Liberty is going to hear that radio traffic and be in position for it"
Currently, each law enforcement agency has separate dispatch offices, and communication between the Sheriff's Department and other departments has been cumbersome, Pulkrabek continued.
"For the first time ever, having all the law enforcement agencies be able to communicate together is a huge step forward. It will be a huge public safety factor," Pulkrabek concluded.
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