When the Cherokee County town of Alto shuttered its police department June 15 to make up a budget shortfall, the decision caught national media attention, including CBS News and the Wall Street Journal.

Alto is not the first East Texas town in recent years to dissolve its police force to cut costs, however.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to see more smaller municipalities do the same thing,” said Walter Ward, mayor of Easton. In 2008, he and Easton city aldermen discontinued their three-man police force. The decision met heavy resistance from some residents, and methods the aldermen used caught a different kind of attention — from county and state prosecutors.

Three years later, however, Ward and Mayor Pro Tem Shannon Brown say proof that their decision was right is plain to see. Easton went from writing hot checks to pay policemen’s salaries to having an almost immediate surplus. Surpluses have helped the city buy new maintenance equipment, maintain existing equipment and resume an annual festival that went on a two-year hiatus because of a lack of city finances.

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