On Monday night, the Hampton Village Board of Trustees voted to eliminate the police department and hire the sheriff's office.
Sheriff Darren Hart says his office has already been providing at least 50% of Hampton's police protection. That is, deputies patrol the village as part of their assigned duties in zone three of Rock Island County.
He says, "This will be revenue and actual costs that are paid directly from the Village of Hampton for police services. So that would go towards any type of personnel issues that we would have, equipment and so forth. So this will not be a depletion on the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office budget. We will discuss those budgeting issues with the village here in the next several months."
For more than 20 years, Hart says the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office has been providing services to a handful of towns. They include Andalusia, Carbon Cliff, Cordova, Port Byron, Rapids City, Hillsdale, and now Hampton as well.
