Fast-growing Carroll needs a countywide police force, commissioners say.

The commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to create a task force to study the transition to a countywide police force with an appointed chief instead of relying on the Sheriff’s Office and state troopers for law enforcement.

The task force of state police and Sheriff’s Office deputies, to be headed by the county administration’s chief of staff, Steven Powell, will study county officers’ duties and certification and first set a timetable for the switch to a county force. Baltimore, Howard and Anne Arundel counties have county police forces, while in Harford, the Sheriff’s Office is the primary agency.

“I think we do need to have a system that takes a broad look at the county,” Carroll Commissioner Dean Minnich said. “Over the past few months, we have realized there is a division between the groups.”

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For more than 30 years, state troopers have served as Carroll’s main police force under the Resident Trooper Program. Carroll, the only county in Maryland with the program, pays about $5 million a year for 45 state troopers to patrol the county. The nearly 70 sheriff’s deputies receive about $4.5 million a year from the county.

The commissioners now control only the budget for the Sheriff’s Office, not the trooper program. But with a county force, the commissioners would oversee the county police force’s chief, policies and salaries.

Sheriff Kenneth Tregoning commended the commissioners’ action as a step in the right direction, but believed an elected head of police is the best option for citizens. “It’s my contention that the people of the county should vote and select their law-enforcement officials,” he said. “The sheriff always has been and always will be accountable to the people.”

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com