MIFFLIN TOWNSHIP — Mifflin Township has abolished its police division effective immediately and is seeking partnerships or contracts with other law enforcement agencies to cover the Franklin County township, the board of trustees said in a Nov. 11 news release reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
The move follows voters’ rejection of a continuing property tax levy that would have funded continued police operations, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The 6.9-mill levy was rejected by about 56% of voters, with 44% in favor, according to unofficial results from the Franklin County Board of Elections reported by The Columbus Dispatch. The levy would have cost property owners $244 for each $100,000 of county assessed value.
For residents, the immediate question is who answers the call. Brian Steel, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, said the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office will respond to emergency runs and other calls in the township after the vote but will not perform regular patrols, The Columbus Dispatch reported. That distinction matters: a sheriff’s response to emergencies is not the same as a local division’s routine presence on township streets.
The division being abolished was small. It had two full-time officers and three part-time officers, according to records from the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy website cited by The Columbus Dispatch. A department that size has little margin when officers are hurt, resign or take leave — and Mifflin Township’s division had already been tested on exactly that point.
The division struggled with staffing after two of its officers were shot by a suspect who fled a traffic stop in May 2025, The Columbus Dispatch reported. For a five-officer division, losing two officers to recovery at once removes a large share of its patrol capacity, and the township has been working through the consequences since.
The trustees thanked the police department for its service in their statement, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “The Trustees’ priority is to ensure the continued delivery of effective and reliable public safety services while maintaining responsible stewardship of public funds,” the township said in the statement quoted by The Columbus Dispatch. “Additional information regarding future police protection services will be shared as it becomes available.”
The township has not responded to a request for further information, The Columbus Dispatch reported, and its administrative offices were closed Nov. 11 for Veterans Day, according to the township’s voicemail greeting. That leaves the central practical details — how long the sheriff-only arrangement lasts, what a partner contract would cost, and whether a future levy could restore a local division — unanswered for now.
Mifflin Township is not the only Ohio community doing hard math after Nov. 3. Across the region, failed levies are forcing cuts and service changes, as NewsForce247 reported in nine Southwest Ohio school levies failing, putting millions in cuts ahead, and police services elsewhere are being reshaped too, from Portsmouth’s police records bureau reopening at a new home to departments weighing how to stretch small staffs.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Confirmed: the trustees voted to abolish the division, the abolition is effective immediately, the township is seeking partnership or contract coverage, and the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office will handle emergency runs without regular patrols, according to the township’s release and reporting by The Columbus Dispatch. Still waiting: the terms and cost of any partner agreement, how non-emergency calls will be handled day to day, and whether trustees will return to voters with another levy.
The sequence that led here is short and stark: a small division, a shooting that strained its staffing in May 2025, a levy campaign to keep it funded, a 56% rejection at the ballot box on Nov. 3, and a trustees’ vote days later to abolish it rather than run it without money. Each step followed from the one before, and the township’s own statement frames the vote as stewardship as much as surrender.
What happens next is the contracting decision. The township says it is seeking partnerships or contracts with local law enforcement agencies, and it promises more information as it becomes available. Until an agreement is announced, Mifflin Township residents should expect emergency response from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office — and no regular local patrols.
Photo: Raymond Wambsgans, CC BY-SA