HARDIN – Big Horn County commissioners have voted to allow the city of Hardin to form its own police department.
The vote Tuesday came after officials from Hardin assured commissioners that a California company that had sought to take over a private jail in Hardin would have nothing to do with the city’s police force.
The Hardin City Council had already voted in favor of deconsolidating law enforcement, allowing Hardin to put its own police force in place by July 1, 2011.
Hardin’s law enforcement was consolidated with Big Horn County in 1979 and the city pays the county $300,000 a year for law enforcement services. It will cost the city an estimated $1 million to run a department with a police chief and seven officers.
Mayor Ron Adams says the first step will be to hire a police chief to organize the department.