BROOME, BINGHAMTON MAY MERGE SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNITS

A drug crime anywhere is a drug problem everywhere, and that's why
Binghamton and Broome County may merge their special investigations
units.

It wouldn't be a big leap.

Binghamton Detective Lt. David Eggleston and Broome County Sheriff's
Detective Sgt. Michael Fedish had ridden together before. They'd
arrested drug dealers, investigated crimes. The only difference
between them seemed to be the logo on their badges.

So why not widen the practice? They won the support of Sheriff David
Harder and Police Chief John Butler, and sometime in the next month or
so -- if the details can be worked out -- the two agencies' special
investigations units will merge.

"The City of Binghamton has historically been the center of drug
activity," Harder said, but city efforts to run the drug dealers out
of town didn't run them out of the county. "Now it's Johnson City,
Endicott. It's spread like cancer."

That's what the merged unit would try to solve.

"It would be more flexible in what it can do," Butler said. By
combining the two units, they would have 16 detectives who could
ferret out information and leads from most of the moldy crevices in
the county.

At the moment, Harder and Butler plan to be a board of directors to
oversee Eggleston and Fedish, who would operate the unit. Beyond that,
questions such as who would have operational command, how would
disputes be resolved and other matters of how the unit would function
are still to be answered.

"There's a lot of different dynamics we have to consider," Butler
said.

Other questions, however, have been answered. The unit's headquarters
would be separate from both agencies and would be paid for from
narcotics seizures, Harder said.

All the detectives would retain their salary from the appropriate
agency -- $47,843 for sheriff's detectives and $52,300 for a sheriff's
sergeant, compared with $55,516 for a Binghamton lieutenant, $51,801
for a sergeant and $46,768 for a top-level detective.

It may not seem entirely fair that two detectives doing the same job
may get different salaries, Harder admitted, but that's already the
case, and it has been the case since he was a narcotics detective a
couple of decades ago.

And while one agency or the other may see some minor cost savings from
being able to more efficiently manage overtime, he added, don't expect
to see your property tax bill plummet. The goal is better policing.

In fact, Butler and Harder hope it will be so successful that other
police agencies will want to join.

"What we've been consistently saying is that consolidation, if it's
cost-effective and provides better service, is something we have to
consider," Butler said.