The financial cost of the most recent round of feuding within the Tisbury police department and the related departure of former chief John Cashin is finally available, and it is more than $30,000.

Some eight weeks after Mr. Cashin went public with the extraordinary criticisms of his “dysfunctional” department which cost him his job, the town this week released details of his severance package.

Mr. Cashin will receive $29,210.22, made up of three months’ salary and amounts for accrued but unused vacation time and the buyback of sick leave entitlement.

To that amount must be added the cost of an inquiry set up by the town into the operations of the troubled department and the expense of getting a new chief.

The inquiry is being carried out by Robert Wasserman, an Island-based expert consultant on police issues. He has done work for various police departments around the country and the world, including places as disparate as London and Bosnia, as well as two previous reports on the Tisbury police.

His first Tisbury report, done in February 2001, found the department to be “dysfunctional, at best” and foreshadowed many of the complaints made by Chief Cashin more than eight years later.

The next report, which selectmen hope to have in hand by mid-July, is costing the town $2,500.

“It’s a flat fee. He’s given us a very good rate,” said town administrator John Bugbee.

The current inquiry is well under way. Mr. Wasserman already has spoken to all the selectmen, various other town officials and police.

Then there is the cost of finding a new chief.

Mr. Cashin formally ceased to be police chief from the close of business on May 20, and officer Daniel Hanavan, who has served 19 years on the force, was appointed to act as chief until Oct. 12, when a new permanent head of the department is due to be appointed.

It may well be that Mr. Hanavan will be that chief; he only narrowly lost out to Mr. Cashin last time around, in 2006.

In the meantime, however, he is getting more money.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Bugbee told the selectmen a step increase for Chief Hanavan currently would amount to $7.44 an hour, and would rise to $9.05 an hour with the start of the new fiscal year, on July 1. The selectmen approved the raise.

That makes about an extra $8,000 for acting Chief Hanavan.

There also is an as-yet unquantified cost associated with the process of vetting potential applicants for the job. Last time around, in 2006, this involved Mr. Bugbee and the acting chief of that time going down to Norwalk, Conn., from where Mr. Cashin came, to check him out.

That check, incidentally, found nothing but positives.

The first indication of Mr. Cashin’s proclivity for public airing of dirty police linen came in July 2007, almost a year into his tenure here as chief, when his strongly-worded criticisms of the Norwalk police were printed across the top of the front page of the Norwalk daily paper, The Hour.

In the article, Mr. Cashin criticized members of the force for insubordination, lack of discipline and immorality, and called for a complete shakeup of the department.

He told the paper he had left the Norwalk force because he could no longer tolerate the culture of the place, and was going public as a “last ditch effort to get somebody to wake up to what’s been going on in that department for years.”

In spite of a letter of complaint from the mayor of Norwalk, Richard A. Moccia, in which he described Mr. Cashin’s comments as insulting, outrageous and unprofessional, Tisbury selectmen did nothing about it.

Then in May this year, Chief Cashin did something very similar here; in interviews with both Island papers, he condemned members of his department.

In an interview with the Gazette, Chief Cashin said a handful of police had been hostile toward him ever since his appointment, and had spread “vile, preposterous and outrageous” rumors about his sexual preferences, including an alleged sexual advance to a male officer, substance abuse, and his sanity.

He said the department was dysfunctional, that five members of the 13 strong force were involved in the whispering campaign against him, and that he was contemplating legal action against some of them for defamation.

And again, as in the Norwalk case, he said that he had decided to go public in a last attempt to draw attention to the problems.

It cost him his job, although the severance agreement released by the town, says the parties “mutually wish” to terminate his employment prior to the original contract date of Sept. 5, 2009.

The document details: “Upon full execution of the modification of employment agreement and release, the town will pay Cashin the following amounts of accrued but unused vacation and sick leave buyback:

“Vacation: 74 hours plus 12 hours holiday, for a total amount of $3,823.56.

Sick leave buyback: 204 days at 25 per cent pay for a total amount of $2,267.46.”

In addition, the town agreed to pay a lump sum equivalent to three months’ salary, or $23,119.20.

Mr. Cashin agreed not to sue or commence proceedings against the town, selectmen or other town officials present, past or future.

The agreement also provides that he will cooperate with the town “in connection with any existing or future inquiries, complaints, administrative or court proceedings, including the provision of information and/or testimony, related to his employment with the town of Tisbury.”

It promises reasonable reimbursement of his costs associated “with proceedings in which the town has requested Cashin’s presence.”

Given that there are now several ongoing inquiries into the actions of the Tisbury police, it may well be the price of removing and replacing the chief could yet inflate a little more.