An Act to amend and reenact § 15.2-1726 of the Code of Virginia, relating to interjurisdictional law-enforcement agreements; behavioral health co-response teams.
HB248 amends Virginia law governing agreements between localities and other public law-enforcement entities for sharing or consolidating police services. The bill keeps existing authority for reciprocal policing agreements, mutual aid, boundary-line arrangements for 911 dispatch and response, and the loan of unmarked police vehicles, while adding explicit authorization for localities to create co-response teams staffed by one or more law-enforcement agencies to respond to behavioral health-related calls across multiple jurisdictions.
The bill also continues to allow counties to contract with towns and the county sheriff for the sheriff to provide town law-enforcement services. Under such contracts, the sheriff and deputy sheriffs serving the town retain the same powers, rights, benefits, privileges, and immunities as regular town police officers, and the sheriff serves as the town’s chief of police. The measure does not create a new statewide mandate; it expands and clarifies the menu of interjurisdictional policing arrangements local governments may choose to adopt.
HB248 updates § 15.2-1726 of the Code of Virginia to expressly recognize behavioral health co-response teams as a permissible component of interlocal police-service agreements. It also reinforces existing authority for localities, state police, federal police, campus police, and certified private police departments to cooperate in furnishing police services, and preserves the legal framework for consolidated police departments and county-town sheriff service contracts. The practical effect is to give local governments clearer statutory authority to coordinate cross-jurisdictional responses to behavioral health calls and other policing functions without changing the basic discretionary nature of these agreements.
The available record shows no recorded committee transcript or vote breakdown, but the bill’s enactment as Chapter 535 indicates it moved through the process successfully and was approved. The overall sentiment appears favorable or at least noncontroversial, consistent with a measure that clarifies local authority and supports coordinated public-safety and behavioral-health responses. Because no debate excerpts are provided, there is no evidence of organized opposition in the available materials.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided materials. Potential issues inherent in the bill’s subject matter could include how co-response teams are funded, how jurisdictions allocate responsibility for dispatch and liability, and how behavioral health calls are handled operationally across multiple localities. However, the text itself is permissive rather than mandatory, and the record supplied does not identify any lawmakers, agencies, or stakeholders taking opposing positions.