Rotating police position OK’d in Houlton

HOULTON – With one veteran police officer on assignment to sweep drugs off community streets, the Houlton Police Department is taking advantage of the shift in staffing to do some additional restructuring in the agency.

Town councilors earlier this week approved a police union contract sidebar agreement that will create a rotating “special investigations” position with the department.

The move will allow the police department to create a separate detective’s position, a deal that will not result in the addition of new staff.

The realignment comes on the heels of seasoned Houlton police Detective Staff Sgt. James Skehan’s assignment to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA recently received funding to bring two more agents into the area for assignments of 16 months or longer. Skehan and Detective Sgt. Bill Campbell of the Presque Isle Police Department were chosen by the DEA to help fight the state’s drug problem.

The Houlton detective slot will now be called the special investigator’s position, and officers will rotate in and out of the spot every six months. This will allow a number of police officers to serve in the position and receive additional training. The special investigator will receive a stipend of $33 per week during each temporary assignment.

The DEA is repaying the department for Skehan’s salary and insurance while he is with the agency, and that money is now being used to fund the new position.

Although there was initial concern among some councilors about the long-term financial implications of the move, the panel was quickly reassured the move would benefit the department.

“We’ve got 13 officers now, and by putting someone into the special investigation’s position, we are not changing our staffing at all,” Soucy told the board. “It is just changing their [the officer’s] job duties.”

“We’re not increasing numbers; we are just reassigning duties,” Chairman Paul Romanelli said at the meeting. “So it won’t come back to us in the budget in the form of bigger numbers.”

Town Manager Douglas Hazlett pegged the move as “sort of the best of both worlds, as it gives them [police administrators] the opportunity to fine-tune the department.”

Councilors voted unanimously to approve the realignment.