Point Pleasant is not an incorporated city in Boone County, nor is it census-designated like the county seat of Burlington.
On a map, Point Pleasant consists of several industrial buildings, including the fire station, located just to the east of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Point Pleasant lacks its own police department, trash collection services, and the authority to collect taxes. It did, however, have its own fire service for over 60 years.
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Despite being a nonexistent town, it was home to one of Boone County’s nine fire protection districts.
The station’s origins date back to 1958, when the homeowners of a now-defunct subdivision between Mineola Pike and Point Pleasant Road chartered a fire service for the small community. The station became a bona fide fire protection district under Kentucky state law in 1979, and was among the first ambulance services in Boone County.
The district covered an area of approximately five and a half square miles of northeastern Boone County, providing a range of community services, including fire prevention, protection, suppression, rescue, emergency medical services and public education.
In 1989, Point Pleasant was the second department in Boone County to hire full-time staff. Its team included career, part-time, and volunteer members, several of whom were nationally certified in fire and EMS services. Its fleet included two engine companies, one ladder company, an ALS ambulance and a ventilation unit, according to the department’s website.
Although the department has a longstanding history and capable personnel, Point Pleasant is no longer part of the larger Boone County fire protection network. In March 2025, Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore signed an executive order authorizing the merger of the Point Pleasant Fire Protection District into the Hebron Fire Protection District.
The Point Pleasant station was not closed during the merger. Instead, it was incorporated into the Hebron fire district, which now covers nearly 50 square miles in northern Boone County and was previously served by two separate departments.
During a merger celebration last July, Moore touted the decision as a way to expand coverage, consolidate leadership, and simplify administrative overhead. In essence, Boone County officials, along with Point Pleasant District Chief Michael Giordano and Hebron District Chief Adam Peddicord believed the merger would improve the fire department’s operational efficiency in northern Boone County by eliminating redundancies of service.
“The merger reflects years of discussions, hard work and commitment by both fire
districts to deliver the best possible emergency services to our residents,” Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore said after the merger was finalized. “It is a win-win-win for residents, first responders and fire districts as they continue to provide high-quality and specialized services.”
The move is not without precedent in the region, as the river cities of Dayton and Bellevue in Campbell County operate a joint fire agency. Before merging in 2002, both cities operated their own fire departments. According to the Fire Department of Dayton-Bellevue website, the growing populations of each city created greater demand for fire and emergency services.
The merger illustrates two Northern Kentucky-based public service agencies choosing to consolidate their resources to better serve their broader constituency. Historically, Northern Kentucky’s public safety system has been a complex network of independent departments, agencies and service districts that operate without any inherent connection to one another.
Northern Kentucky is made up of 37 incorporated cities across Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties, many of which have their own police and fire departments.
At the county level, Boone, Kenton, and Campbell each have sheriffs’ offices, while Kenton and Campbell also operate their own police forces. These forces generally operate independently of one another, even when their service areas overlap. Although mutual-aid agreements and regional dispatch services help close some gaps, the administrative framework remains fragmented.
That fragmentation periodically fuels conversations about consolidation. When departments struggle to recruit, replace aging equipment, or maintain specialized units, the idea of merging forces or districts has gained traction among some public officials.
Brent Cooper, president of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, has long supported the idea of consolidation amongst departments that potentially duplicate services. From his perspective, it would help streamline service delivery while saving costs.
“I think from the Chamber of Commerce perspective, we want our elected leaders to always be looking for ways to be more efficient and productive with the tax dollars they receive,” Cooper told LINK nky. “We are always encouraging people to take a look at those kinds of costs, whether it’s police, fire, 911, you name it. Where are there opportunities for us to work collaboratively and work together? That’s Northern Kentucky’s superpower.”
As the region becomes more populous and economically significant, there is increasing demand to consolidate its fragmented public safety systems, driven by the perception of duplicated services. Each agency operates independently with its own chief or sheriff, command personnel, HR and payroll systems, fleet management, procurement processes, and training schedules.
“There have been examples of those consolidations and collaborations in the past that I think have paid off, and we would encourage people to continue to do that,” Cooper said.
NKY’s police departments
Law enforcement in Northern Kentucky is delivered through a combination of county and municipal police departments, which differ in size and coverage. Overall, there are 27 law enforcement agencies serving Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties, along with the police departments serving Northern Kentucky University and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Boone County has one countywide law enforcement agency, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office. On the city side, only Florence has its own municipal police department. Walton and Union do not fund their own police departments and instead rely on the sheriff’s office. Boone County previously had a countywide police department serving the county’s unincorporated areas, but it merged with the sheriff’s office in 2001.
Kenton County has the most decentralized law enforcement structure among the three counties. It operates both a Kenton County Police Department, which provides patrol services primarily in unincorporated areas, and a Kenton County Sheriff’s Office, which carries out constitutionally mandated duties and supports law enforcement throughout the county.
In addition, 10 cities operate their own municipal police departments, including Covington, Erlanger, Independence, Edgewood, Elsmere, Ludlow, Taylor Mill, Fort Mitchell, Fort Wright, and Crescent Springs. These departments form a dense network of local agencies in close proximity to one another.
In Campbell County, law enforcement is managed by both the Campbell County Police Department and the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office. Meanwhile, nine cities – Alexandria, Bellevue, Dayton, Cold Spring, Fort Thomas, Highland Heights, Newport, Southgate, and Wilder – operate their own police departments. Like other counties, cities without dedicated police departments rely on county agencies for policing.
Digging into the numbers, each police department’s budget varies in value due to the differences in paid staff, vehicles, equipment and other items.
Law enforcement agencies are often some of the largest expenditures for local governments. For instance, the Kenton County Fiscal Court allocated approximately $8.3 million to the police department for operating expenses in the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year. According to Kenton County’s website, the Kenton County Police Department employs 37 sworn officers.
The Boone County Sheriff’s Department budget was $20.5 million during the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year, employing nearly 190 sworn deputies. It is the largest full-service sheriff’s office in Kentucky, according to Boone County’s website. Both departments are the primary policing agencies for the unincorporated areas of Boone and Kenton County, two of Kentucky’s five most populous counties.
At the municipal level, the City of Covington has the largest police department in Northern Kentucky, with 114 officers, according to its website. For the 2025-2026 Fiscal Year, Covington’s police budget totals $21,415,313, with $19,951,073 allocated to personnel. Covington is the most populous city in Northern Kentucky with approximately 41,000 residents.
Smaller cities like Alexandria, with about 10,000 residents, have a correspondingly smaller police force, employing 15 full-time officers. The city budgeted approximately $2.7 million for its police department in the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year.
Similar to the Kenton County Police Department and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, the Campbell County Police serve unincorporated areas of the county. They have 41 officers and a budget of nearly $5.3 million for this fiscal year. Kenton and Campbell County are two of four total counties in Kentucky with countywide police departments
In spite of their different coverage areas, the Alexandria Police Department headquarters is less than one mile from the Campbell County Police Department headquarters in Alexandria, underscoring the close proximity of some departments in Northern Kentucky.
In terms of population, Northern Kentucky, as a whole, is the second-largest population center in the state of Kentucky, with over 400,000 people, behind Louisville-Jefferson County and ahead of Lexington-Fayette County – both consolidated city-county governments.
As such, both governments are responsible for policing their respective jurisdictions, consolidating all of their funding, resources and human capital into one department for each. The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department has over a thousand sworn officers, while the Lexington Police Department has 641 sworn officers. Both departments have public-safety budgets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It should be noted that Jefferson County has several independent law enforcement agencies that serve small incorporated areas within the county, but each of these cities still falls within LMPD’s countywide coverage area.
Hypothetically, if the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, Kenton County Police Department, and Campbell County Police Department merged into a single department, the combined budget would be approximately $34 million per year, employing 268 officers.
These figures are derived by adding together the department’s overall budget and officer counts. Even with the combined department, the numbers are still dwarfed by those of the Louisville Metro and Lexington Police Departments.
NKY’s fire departments
Fire protection in Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties is similarly decentralized, with services delivered through a mix of independent fire districts and municipal fire departments rather than a single countywide system in each area.
In Boone County, fire and emergency medical services are primarily provided by fire protection districts rather than city-run departments. These districts are independent taxing entities governed by boards and created under state law to serve specific geographic areas, which can include both incorporated and unincorporated land. There are currently seven fire protection districts: Belleview-McVille, Burlington, Hebron, Petersburg, Union, Verona and Walton. Boone County does not have its own county fire department. Florence finances its own citywide fire department and EMS service.
Kenton County has a complex fire service system, with cities including Covington, Ludlow, Independence, Bromley, Edgewood, Elsmere, Erlanger, Fort Mitchell, Fort Wright, Park Hills, Ryland Heights, and Taylor Mill operating their own fire departments, either career, volunteer, or combination, with local governance or fire boards. Crescent Springs and Villa Hills Fire Department operate a joint department. In addition, the county also features the Piner-Fiskburg Fire Protection District in southwestern Kenton County.
In Campbell County, fire protection is primarily provided by fire protection districts, with only a few standalone municipal fire departments, including Newport, the joint Department of Bellevue-Dayton, Fort Thomas, Wilder, Southgate and Melbourne. Campbell County also features multiple independent fire districts, including Campbell County Fire District #1, Central Campbell County Fire District, Southern Campbell Fire District and Alexandria Fire District.
Looking into some of the financials, the Florence Fire Department’s fire budget for the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year was approximately $13.2 million, and it employed 86 staff members. The City of Covington’s fire budget for the current fiscal year is around $20.5 million, with $19.3 million allocated to personnel. The department employs around 55 firefighters. The City of Newport has the oldest fire department in Northern Kentucky, established with the purchase of its first steam fire engine in 1868. Currently, Newport has budgeted $8.6 million for the fire department in this fiscal year, which employs about 40 personnel.
Downstate, Louisville and Lexington operate Kentucky’s two largest fully professional fire departments, both structured to serve large urban populations through consolidated local governments. Louisville’s Division of Fire serves the Louisville Metro area through roughly 21 stations and a workforce of about 500 sworn and civilian personnel. Lexington’s Fire Department is larger in staffing and footprint, with more than 600 firefighters operating out of 24 or more stations countywide.
Comparatively, Northern Kentucky’s fire protection system looks markedly different. Instead of one or two large, consolidated departments, Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties rely on a patchwork of municipal fire departments and independent fire protection districts.
“What jumps out at you when you hear the stories about how tough it is to find officers,” The Chamber’s Cooper said, “how tough it is to find firefighters, when you hear people complain about lack of police officers, lack of fire folks, it seems to me that this makes a lot of sense for us to reevaluate how we’re doing things and encourage people to come together.”
The contrast highlights two different approaches to organizing public safety. Louisville and Lexington represent centralized systems with uniform coverage and administration across large jurisdictions. Northern Kentucky reflects a decentralized model shaped by historic municipal boundaries, suburban development, and fire districts, resulting in numerous smaller departments.
Ultimately, challenges to consolidation remain, including technological integration, questions surrounding pensions and employee salaries, and the relinquishing of local control by various municipalities and communities. For now, Northern Kentucky remains a patchwork of independent police and fire agencies. As the region grows, changing service will place new pressures on systems designed in a different era.