The small, southern New Hampshire towns of Greenville and Temple broke barriers when they forged a new jointly run police department three years ago.

The concept has been such a hit in terms of efficiency, savings, and retaining high-quality officers that the towns recently renewed their agreement for five years and caught the eye of other communities exploring regional police services, local officials said.

"For us, it's been fantastic," Temple-Greenville Police Chief James H. McTague said.

"I'm not saying a merger is for everyone. But based on our experience, it was the best thing that either town could have done," he added.

Still, McTague admits convincing the two towns to give up their separate police departments and create a joint new one was a hard sell.

Merging police forces -- or fire departments and road agents for that matter -- strikes at the heart of New Hampshire's precious local control credo. But Yankee thrift can be equally compelling and seems to be driving the latest cluster of communities considering a shared force.

"With costs and everything today, you've got to say, 'Okay, how do we get the most bang for the buck?' We've got to look at every option," Antrim Town Administrator Bill Prokop said.

Antrim recently joined with Deering, Bennington and Hancock -- all communities of less than 2,700 tucked in the northwestern corner of Hillsborough County -- to explore a regional police force. The recent departure of Antrim's police chief provided the opportunity to revisit the issue.

"We're always trying to cut or maintain costs and improve services," especially in an era of rising fuel, health insurance and retirement costs, Antrim Selectmen Chairman Michael D. Genest said.

McTague predicts other communities will give regionalization a serious look given the savings it offers.

Greenville shaved $115,000 from its police budget and Temple $46,000 during the first year their towns merged forces, he said.

A joint force also solved problems that towns struggled with individually. Temple no longer had to build a police station to replace its one-room quarters and got better coverage, while Greenville got a good quality force, McTague explained. And he said better pay staunched the flow of officers leaving to work at other forces just after the towns invested considerable money in training and equipping them.

"I think you are going to find more and more towns say, when their chief retires or move on, that this is something we should consider, especially with the economy and officers (leaving)," McTague said.

"I think more communities are looking at it than they have in the past," agreed Earl M. Sweeney, the state's assistant commissioner of safety.

More towns have seen their populations rise from 300 to 400 people to 1,200 to 1,400 -- large enough to have more crime and collisions, but not big enough to field their own full-time police departments, he said.

"We've got some of these communities at the awkward stage that they are not quite large enough to have a police department, but they have enough business that the citizens want a little more protection. Some of these small communities might be able to band together and create a regional police department," Sweeney added.

And state police, which generally would cover these towns, "are stretched," Sweeney said. There aren't enough troopers to provide 24-hour coverage statewide and response times can be long, he added.

Yankee tradition

Advantages of regional police forces include economies of scale that can allow towns to put more cruisers on the road, provide round-the-clock coverage and even hire a detective to follow up on cases, Sweeney said.

But the hurdles can be significant.

Towns must consider topography, square miles a regional force would cover, response time, and be in the same county and served by the same district court, Sweeney said.

Regional police forces -- while common in other parts of the country -- are rare in New Hampshire.

The state law that allows communities to forge intermunicipal agreements is 31 years old. But the Temple-Greenville Police Department is the only one created under the statute currently in existence.

"It's a New England, Yankee tradition that we like to have control of our own municipal services," Sweeney said. "It's like community policing; everyone likes to have their own police officer."

"It's a New Hampshire thing," Cheshire County Sheriff Richard A. Foote agreed. "People have their own police departments and their police chiefs and that's what the individual towns want .... There is no right or wrong decision."

But James B. Andrews, who wrote and helped pass RSA 53-A, said the intermunicipal agreement law enables towns to govern themselves more efficiently, less expensively and with more professional help.

"I can't understand why there hasn't been a lot of them. I don't think that's progressive," added Andrews, executive director of the New Hampshire Local Government Center Inc., a nonprofit group that represents cities and towns.

"Maybe there is the thought that, 'Oh, we're going to lose some control,' which isn't the case. It makes financial sense and it makes good government sense," he added.

It's more common for small towns to hire a county sheriff's department or larger, neighboring community to provide police coverage for a fee than to create shared police departments, state and county officials said. For instance, Gilsum, a town of about 740 people with no police department, pays to have Cheshire County deputy sheriff's provide police coverage, Foote said.

Meanwhile, state police often remain the only law enforcers in rural areas where many small towns have no police force of their own, Sweeney said.

"A lot of the smaller communities rely on state police heavily for their help. You can certainly see it in the North Country. They do a great job. The communities are pleased and, let's face it, may not be able to afford any more than that," said Peter Morency, Berlin police chief and president of the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police.