Friday, January 13, 2006 - NEWFANE -- The Newfane Selectboard plans to shift $1,000 of the town's law enforcement budget from the Windham County Sheriff's Department to the Vermont State Police.

The move would be made in hopes of increasing traffic enforcement in town.

It's a relatively modest shift. This year, Newfane budgeted $17,500 for the sheriff's department and $6,500 for the state police.

If the budget is approved, next year's spending will be $16,500 and $7,500.

At a special budget meeting Thursday, board members expressed concern about their inability to get specific information from the sheriff's department about how much of the town's assessment gets used for traffic enforcement.

"The board felt that it was worth putting some extra money into the allocation for the state police," Chairman Hendrik "Piet" van Loon said in an interview, "so we had to decrease spending somewhere."

He said state police would be in town primarily for traffic enforcement. The sheriff's department, which is based in Newfane Village, handles general law enforcement for the town.

This would be the second time in three years that the town has cut its budget for the sheriff in favor of the state police.

In 2004-2005, the selectboard moved $1,500 of its law enforcement budget to the state police.

Van Loon said he hadn't gotten final approval to make the move from the state police, but the budget is not finalized yet.

He said the board needs to re-examine the revenue budget at its meeting next Thursday.

He said he hoped to finish the budget at that meeting.

The board also cut $500 from the $3,500 budget for its own stipends; the remaining $3,000 is divided among the board's five members.

Members funded a cost-of-living increase of at least 3.5 percent to most full-time town employees.

Andy Rosen can be reached at arosen@reformer.com or (802) 254-2311, ext 275.