Tisbury and Oak Bluffs have begun examining the legal means by which they might merge their two police forces and have approached the state Department of Revenue (DOR) for help in determining how a merger might happen.

Oak Bluffs town administrator Michael Dutton confirmed yesterday that he had had discussions with the DOR with a view to having it produce a report on the feasibility of such a merger.

The amalgamation of the two police departments has been under active consideration since June, when consultant Robert Wasserman delivered a report suggesting significant efficiencies and cost savings could result from a merger.

Tisbury has already taken some steps to clear the way for a merger. When it appointed Daniel Hanavan as the police department’s new chief, his contract included a provision dealing with the contingency of a merged department.

However, the towns faced uncertainties about how they could legally do it, uncertainties which now have been clarified, Tisbury selectman Geoghan Coogan said this week.

“When we formed the [joint Oak Bluffs/Tisbury] police committee, the first step was to examine whether it was legally possible to merge the departments. And now we know yes, there are legal ways to do it. Two of them,” Mr. Coogan said.

“You can either form a new district or make what’s called an intermunicipal agreement between the two boards of selectmen.

“Under the intermunicipal model, essentially one town is gone, subsumed into the other town. We’re not interested in that.

“So the only real way is through forming a new district under the existing general law statute on regionalization.”

But he said there were several wrinkles in that, which had been exposed when the DOR did studies on two other cases of towns which wanted to amalgamate.

“Those DOR reports showed the statute itself is unworkable as presently framed. It would take some changes to the legislation itself to get it done,” Mr. Coogan said.

The necessary changes, though, are not major.

“Just for example, the current regionalization statute requires a fiscal year that ends in December rather than June, which would make budgeting difficult for both towns. That was the biggest issue, although there were other little ones.”

Mr. Coogan said he already had been in contact with state Rep. Timothy Madden’s office to explore the prospect of legislative changes. He also thought the DOR would likely support amendments.

“So we would get DOR to do a report for us, like it did in the other two cases. Then we would take that report and also take it to the legislature, to show them what is wrong with the legislation,” Mr. Coogan said.

“The regionalization statute has been touted by the governor as something he wants municipalities to use. The reality is difficult, but we think if we brought something to the legislature to amend it, no one would stand in the way,” he added.

Mr. Dutton, appointed by the joint police committee to liaise with the state, said the DOR had indicated, in initial conversations that it was “more than happy to help.”

Like Mr. Coogan, Mr. Dutton thought the department would likely support the necessary changes to the legislation.

“I can’t speak for them, but it seems it would be in the DOR’s interest, as well as ours, to make a mechanism that actually works,” Mr. Dutton said.

But he also raised the prospect of another means to effect a possible merger — a home rule petition from the two towns.

“It’s a question of which would be less cumbersome,” he said. “Do we look for a fix for the current statute or ask for special legislation?”

Mr. Coogan said the three meetings of the committee had gone relatively smoothly. At the most recent, the police chiefs and union heads of both forces were included, and there were no strong objections to the merger plan.

“There were some good points made both ways,” he said.

Among the concerns were logistical issues such as response times in a larger geographical area, how joint administration and shared computers might work.

On the personnel side, there were issues too: the two departments have separate union representation and different pay scales.

But Mr. Coogan noted the consultant’s report which began the process suggested that police might have more prospect for promotion in a larger force.

Both Mr. Coogan and Mr. Dutton stressed that many details still had to be ironed out. There would be another meeting of the committee next month, and after that a process of seeking public opinion. There also would likely be further input from another consultant on the economics of any change.

“The Wasserman report said this should be a three-year process, and that’s the time frame we’re looking at,” Mr. Coogan said.

“We want to be very careful about stressing that this is not in the end going to be a choice of the boards of selectmen. This is something the town meetings would have to sign off on.

“But I don’t think it will take so long to figure out if it’s something we want to push. The entire process might take three years, but I think we’ll know much sooner than that if we’re really intent on doing it,” he said.