By Miles Layton

AULANDER — During the question and answer portion, public safety took center stage during Monday night’s State of the Town Address as resident Marshall Cain pressed Aulander’s elected leaders about their decision to eliminate the town’s police department and rely instead on contracted patrol hours from the Bertie County Sheriff’s Office.

Cain, a lifelong resident, voiced frustration with what he described as a lack of visible law enforcement and questioned whether the town had effectively defunded its police department.

“Is it the board’s intention to defund our police department?” Cain asked from the audience. “Because y’all cut the budget and about stripped it. I’m just wondering where we stand on this because the sheriff cannot do the job. He’s got his deputies spread all over this county. He doesn’t have enough deputies.”

The question sparked a back-and-forth that revealed the town’s deep financial struggles — and the balancing act local officials say they face between fiscal survival and public safety.

Worth noting, I covered Hertford Town Council when it decided to dissolve its police department in favor of the Perquimans County Sheriff’s Office providing the primary law enforcement coverage. Based on those articles and ones I’ve written about maintaining police departments in other small towns where I’ve worked, local law enforcement is hard to afford when local resources are limited, particularly in areas where the tax base is flat or shrinking. That said, these places lean heavily on the sheriff’s offices, often advocating for a deputy to be assigned solely to those places that are a long way from the county seat.

“Not taken lightly”

Commissioner Clint Conner responded first, acknowledging that the town’s choice to dissolve its one-officer police force earlier this year was a painful but necessary budget decision.

“The decision that we made was not taken lightly,” Conner said. “As with personal finances, the town also has budgetary constraints. Our expenses have gone up, but revenue has remained stagnant or even decreased in several areas.”

Conner explained that, under North Carolina law, counties — not towns — are required to provide the minimum level of policing.

“Your municipality doesn’t have to,” he said. “The county does. So it is on the county at the minimum to provide coverage, to provide the services that they’re supposed to do for the entire county, including Aulander.”

To help fill the gap, the town now contracts specific patrol hours with the sheriff’s office, typically at night when most incidents occur.

“If you ever look at the statistics, it’s at nighttime,” Conner said. “That’s when we have them come and patrol. During the day, if you see something, say something — call 911. But at night, we wanted residents to have peace of mind that there’s some kind of presence.”

Still, he added, maintaining a full-time, around-the-clock town police force is “not feasible.”

“You can either raise taxes or cut services”

Mayor Bryan Morings echoed Conner’s comments and placed the issue in the broader context of statewide trends.

“If you look around North Carolina, there are towns our size doing away with their police departments because it’s tough to fund them,” Morings said. “The question becomes, how do we fund it? I don’t want my taxes raised — and I know most folks don’t. But you either have the funding for those items, or you don’t.”

Morings noted that Aulander had already increased its property tax rate in recent years but said that wouldn’t be enough to sustain even a small department.

“Everything everywhere is going up,” he said. “And you can either generate the funds, or you don’t have the services. Nobody wants to raise taxes, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.”

Cain pushed back, noting that the town’s public safety budget had been reduced from more than $100,000 to just over $51,000 this year. “We’re not getting anything,” he said. “I go out and walk my dog at night — sometimes I see the sheriff’s car, sometimes I don’t. But a lot of the time, you don’t see them.”

“It took every dollar of tax revenue”

Town Manager Bob Jones offered a stark breakdown of the math behind the decision.

“When we did have a police department, we only had one officer,” Jones said. “And the budget for that one officer took all the ad valorem taxes we received to support that one officer. Every property tax dollar from every citizen went to that one department.”

Jones said it was “not realistic” to maintain a department with a single officer who needed days off, training, and backup. “There’s no way we could afford it at the level we’re at,” he said. “Maybe one day, if we get more industry or commercial growth, we can revisit it. But right now, we have too many other things that need attention in town.”

Jones said the board’s decision wasn’t “reckless,” but a hard call made after long deliberation. “You’re already paying some of the highest county taxes in the state,” he said. “So you are paying for the sheriff’s department. They should be here patrolling, because you’re already paying for it.”

The town, he said, has been pushing the county to do more. “We went before the county board and told them we’re being double-taxed — paying a sheriff to come here and provide coverage when we already pay for it through county taxes. This board has been fighting that battle, and we’re going to keep doing it.”

“We haven’t dropped it”

Commissioner Phil Thomas assured Cain that the town hadn’t abandoned the idea of bringing back local law enforcement — just that it needed a feasible plan.

“We have not just dropped the idea of having a police department,” Thomas said. “We’re working with the county and the sheriff. We have a satellite building that’s available, and we’re pressing for that to be used again. The idea is to keep law enforcement one of the central points in our conversations.”

Thomas said the board is exploring collaboration with nearby towns like Lewiston-Woodville and Kelford to possibly share an officer.

“Nobody has all the answers,” he said. “But we’re working on it. We have not dropped it at all.”

Cain, who has repeatedly raised the issue at council meetings, said he’s less concerned about nighttime patrols than daytime incidents.

“People breaking into houses or businesses — they get the times figured out,” he said. “They know when the patrols come through. We’ve got people drag racing down Main Street in broad daylight. If we had a town cop, even part-time, that would help.”

He added that response times from county deputies have sometimes exceeded 30 minutes, especially for calls in western Bertie County.

“I heard gunshots up here at six in the morning,” Cain said. “Didn’t hear the first response until 6:35.”

“They’re working on it”

Commissioner Ronnie Poppel, who lives in one of the town’s western neighborhoods, said he understands residents’ frustration.

“Marshall, there’s nobody more concerned than me,” Poppel said. “I had a dead body in my yard a couple years ago. My house got shot up — $8,500 worth of damage. So I believe them when they say we’re going to try to get as much coverage as we can. I can promise you that.”

Jones added in closing that regional cooperation could be the long-term solution.

“We’ve talked with the commissioner from Lewiston, who’s over police, and with the mayor of Kelford,” Jones said. “We’ve looked at ways we could collaborate and possibly share a full-time officer.”

“We just want protection”

As the discussion wound down, Cain thanked the board for finally giving a direct answer after months of uncertainty.

“I’m glad y’all finally answered it for me,” he said. “We just want to see protection for this town so we don’t have to worry about our kids — or grandkids — being out in the yard. I know y’all have been up there fighting the county, and I appreciate that.”

The exchange underscored the financial and logistical challenges facing small towns like Aulander, where shrinking revenues, aging infrastructure, and limited staff make even basic services difficult to sustain.

Mayor Morings closed the discussion by acknowledging those realities but promising continued effort.

“We face a lot of challenges,” he said. “We don’t have the resources to do everything we’d like. But we’ll keep moving forward, keep pressing the county, and do the best we can to make this a safe and wonderful place to live.”