HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio — Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey recently announced her office will no longer provide patrols for Crosby, Harrison, and Whitewater townships after the townships and the sheriff's office couldn't agree to a contract for services.
This is not a new issue, however. The WCPO 9 I-Team reported on it back in 2022, when the sheriff asked the three west side townships for at least $1 million for regular patrols.
But now, the townships and the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) have hit a stalemate.
"It's been going on for several years," Harrison Township Trustee Tom Losekamp said.
During a 2022 Hamilton County Commissioners meeting, McGuffey said that all other unincorporated townships in the county paid for services.
“There are good men and women who live in these three townships that have the benefit of our police agency, and we’re simply asking them to step up and pay a fair share,” McGuffey said during that 2022 meeting.
Hear more about how this decision could impact the three western townships in the video below:
We sat down with Losekamp to discuss the issues with the contract. He said the main issue is that their community can't pay the amount the sheriff is asking.
"Well, right now it's probably not so much the first two years, maybe three years, we can afford that, but after that, that's where the holdup comes in," Losekamp said.
The current proposed contract would cost Harrison Township about $41,000 in 2025, according to Losekamp. He also said that price tag would progressively increase over time.
He said his worries come from whether the township could afford future costs. Losekamp said to afford that, the nearly 4,500 homeowners in the township will likely have to pay. But he said that's easier said than done.
“The last time we tried a levy was 2008, and that failed," Losekamp said.
Losekamp said it's unclear how much paying for sheriff's office services could cost down the road, which has led to contract disputes.
That prompted the sheriff to send a letter back in March notifying Harrison Township that the sheriff's office will no longer offer patrol services in the area.
"I kind of figured something like that would happen," Losekamp said.
46807837-Sheriff's Letter 3-4-25 by webeditors on Scribd
Losekamp said the headlines of losing patrols are worse than the reality of it all.
He said the township didn't ask for patrols in the first place and added that sheriff's deputies will still respond to calls for emergencies. He said he didn't anticipate it adding significant response times for those calls.
I asked Losekamp if he feels the sheriff is stopping patrols as a tactic to use public pressure to get township trustees to sign a contract.
"Yeah, I think so," Losekamp said.
Whitewater Township Trustee Guy Schaible said he agrees. While the more than 6,000 residents living in that township may be worried by the decision, Schaible said they shouldn't.
"They get all scared, cause they think 'oh my gosh, we're gonna have no police! We're going to have no police!' And that's not the case," Schaible said.
Like Harrison Township, Schaible said that Whitewater Township has never paid for patrols. He said the main issue, however, is that they also can't afford to pay for them.
Schaible said the township already pays the HCSO through county taxpayer money that the sheriff's office receives. Schaible said they tried to pass a levy to bring more money to the county to pay HCSO, but it failed.
He said the sheriff wanted Whitewater Township to pay $83,000 in 2025, but he said that's still just an estimate. Schaible said, with the way the contract is written, that figure could increase at any time.
"Once they get it going, if the cost goes up, we would be responsible for that cost," Schaible said.
He said they want to work with the sheriff's office, but it comes down to affordability.
"We just don't have the money, it's not like we don't want to give it to them," Schaible said.
WCPO 9 reached out to Crosby Township Trustee Dennis Heyob for comment regarding the story.
He responded, saying that "Crosby Township agreed to the contract a while back."
We reached out to a spokesperson for HCSO about the decision. They sent WCPO 9 the following statement:
"We are in ongoing conversations with Harrison, Crosby, and Whitewater Townships regarding an agreement on police services. We should have another update to the status of these conversations in the next 2 weeks."
