Police chief named to head new regional force for Swissvale, Braddock Hills

The new police force set to begin patrolling Swissvale and Braddock Hills next year now has a leader.

Veteran Swissvale police Chief Charles Watson was selected Monday night to lead the Swissvale Braddock Hills Regional Police Department, whose 18 full-time officers start Jan. 1.

The appointment, made by a seven-member board of elected leaders from the two communities, is the latest development in a regionalization push that’s been in the works in eastern Allegheny County for the better part of a decade.

The salary for Watson, who joined the Swissvale force in 1998 and was named chief in 2018, has not been set for leading the regional department next year, Swissvale Borough Manager Greg Bachy told TribLive. His current salary in Swissvale is $107,123.

Swissvale, which todays employs 15 officers, is set to spend $2.4 million on the regional force in 2026, borough officials said.

Braddock Hills, whose municipal police department currently has only one full-time officer, will contribute $554,000, according to officials there.

Some collaboration between the two boroughs, which border one another, already is in place, Watson told TribLive. Swissvale police currently patrol Braddock Hills on weekends. The financial terms of that shared coverage were not available Tuesday.

“For years, (Swissvale police) essentially had 20 full-time equivalents, between the full-timers and the part-timers. But, in recent years, the part-timers have gone away,” Watson told TribLive. “In doing this, both communities will benefit.”

Elected leaders told TribLive that manpower — specifically the need to fully staff shifts around the clock and recruit new officers — was the driving issue behind the push to form a regional force.

Future cost savings

Staffing is a police issue both locally and nationally.

Pittsburgh police ranks, for instance, plummeted this summer to a 20-year low. On Aug. 1, the city’s police bureau employed 755 sworn officers — its fewest since 2005.

Overall staffing at American police departments was static between Jan. 1, 2024 and Jan. 1, 2025, a Police Executive Research Forum report showed. The staffing totals, however, were still 5% below 2020 tallies.

In Swissvale and Braddock Hills, finances also played a role, officials said. Both municipalities are set to spend slightly more next year on police, with Swissvale’s costs increasing about 4% over this year, Bachy said.

There are benefits to pooling resources, multiple officials said.

“It’s a wash right now but there’s going to be opportunities for us to save money in the future,” said Swissvale Councilman Kevin Hanes, who was named president of the commission planning out the regional force.

“We looked at the good, the bad and the indifferent. And we looked at best practices,” Hanes added. “This is the trend in the commonwealth right now, and there’s an opportunity here for us to grow.”

Swissvale Councilman Chris Ansell, treasurer of the seven-member board, also said pooling two boroughs’ resources into one department was “us trying to be proactive.”

“We’re reading the writing on the wall, if you will, about what’s coming,” Ansell told TribLive. “That’s just the situation with policing right now … Fewer people want to be police officers.”

“We’re not having trouble filling shifts but if this trend does continue, we would have been in trouble,” he added.

Consolidation trend

Pennsylvania has more than 1,200 police departments — more than any state in the nation, police records and Bureau of Labor Statistics reports show.

Efforts to consolidate and regionalize police forces in Pennsylvania started in 1968, when the first “joint police department,” started patrolling Marshall, Pine and Bradford Woods in Pittsburgh’s North Hills, according to the department’s website.

It later was renamed Northern Regional Police and added Richland to its patrol territory.

More than 50 years later, Cheswick and Springdale formed a regional police force. East Deer later joined and the department was renamed Allegheny Valley Regional Police.

As of this year, 41 regional police departments represent 143 municipalities in Pennsylvania, according to a state Department of Community and Economic Development report.

Another regional force in Allegheny County — Eastern Regional Mon Valley Police — launched last year to patrol East Pittsburgh, North Braddock and Rankin, police said. Braddock joined this year.

“These were distressed communities … and their money goes further now,” Eastern Regional Mon Valley Police Chief Derrick Turner told TribLive on Tuesday.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all for police,” added Turner, who led a police force in Alabama before taking the Pittsburgh-area post. “I do believe that regionalization of police departments has its pros — not just for financial distressed communities but also in terms of staffing.”

Watson, the chief of the new Swissvale-Braddock Hills force, told TribLive he’s been in contact with police brass from all three regional departments in Allegheny County.

“They were all very supportive — and watching what happened with Eastern Regional was a learning experience,” Watson said. “But, Eastern Regional, they’re different. They started out from scratch. We’re going to use all the things that Swissvale already has.”

Officer shortage

Braddock Hills recently lost its second full-time officer when a lieutenant went part-time, borough Manager Cheryl Sorrentino said. Hiring new officers to staff a small police force is difficult, she stressed.

“It’s not for a lack of trying,” Sorrentino told TribLive. “There’s just a shortage of officers out there.”

Officers in the new department will work out of the former Woodland Hills Intermediate School, also known as West Junior High, on Evans Street, said Bachy, the Swissvale borough manager.

That building currently serves as Swissvale police’s headquarters.

The officers will move into the new Swissvale municipal building, once construction there is complete, Bachy and Watson said. The new force is set to move into the first floor of the building around August 2026.