The Maine House on Wednesday gave initial approval to add more state police officers to patrol four rural counties. But the state budget crunch will make funding the new positions difficult.
The proposal adds two dozen positions to Aroostook, Somerset, Franklin and Androscoggin counties through a mix of patrol officers and corporals.
The bill is the latest effort to beef up patrols in rural areas where response times are often measured in hours instead of minutes.
Rural policing is often a patchwork of state police, county sheriffs and local agencies — for those communities that have one.
Last year Gov. Janet Mills proposed adding 32 state police officers, but the legislature only funded half of them.
Rep. Will Tuell, a Republican from East Machias, acknowledged that funding this bill will be a challenge, too.
"These resources are spread super thin, just as our state coffers are extremely thin. But if there were one area that we could fund, that we needed to fund, this would be it," he said.
The Maine State Police took a neutral position on the bill, but only because it wasn't included in the governor's biennial budget.
The proposal received bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled House, 117-26. It now moves to the Senate.
