NEW IPSWICH — At a resident’s suggestion, the town is looking at a new way of running its police department, and a committee has been tasked with sorting out the details.

Last winter, a resident suggested that the town consider moving toward a regional police department — one that covers two or more communities — to cut down on costs while maintaining adequate coverage, said Selectman Ben Cargill.

In April, a five-member committee was formed to examine the idea, said Cargill, who is a member. Over the last few months, the committee talked to communities that have adopted regional police departments, sought input from residents of New Ipswich, and put out feelers to all the contiguous communities to see if there was any interest in joining forces.

Cargill said that the committee started its work by holding a public hearing to get feedback from New Ipswich residents.

“We wanted to make sure there wasn’t an overwhelmingly negative reaction to this idea before we moved forward,” he said. “What we found was that people weren’t against the idea, but they wanted more information.”

Then, Cargill said, the conversations started with communities like Temple and Greenville, which have a shared police department.

“Temple-Greenville has made it work because they’ve found people who want it to work,” said Cargill. “If we’re going to do the same thing here, we’re going to have to have people who support the idea on board.”

Cargill said it appears that a regional police department would work for New Ipswich and could reduce the cost of policing to the town by sharing overhead with another community. With the information it has gathered thus far, the committee plans to approach selectmen Tuesday and ask that they be given the charge to go forward with formal letters to some of the surrounding towns to see if there’s a serious interest in working together.

“We’ve had some positive feedback from other communities,” said Cargill, “but we’d like to see if there is potential interest in moving forward.”

nfoster@newstote.com