HILO, Hawai'i — County officials are once again considering moving Big Island police officers out of their privately owned cars with the blue lights mounted on top, and into county-owned, marked police cruisers.

Kaua'i and Maui have shifted over to county-owned police vehicles, and O'ahu officers use a mix of private vehicles and county-owned police cars. But the Big Island has just a handful of police vehicles that are used to haul prisoners.

Instead, the Big Island Police Department pays about $4.7 million a year to Big Island officers to compensate them for using their own cars for patrol and other police duty.

Alan Pratt, president of West Hawai'i CrimeStoppers, contends county-owned marked cars give police higher visibility, and said the large number of tourists who visit the island expect to see marked cars.

Pratt prepared a study in 2003 that said marked cars would be cheaper for the county, and said he believes they would also deter crime.

However, a county working group set up to plan a conversion to county-owned marked vehicles concluded last month that a county-owned fleet would be more expensive.

Big Island police officers had a "mixed reaction" to the proposal to switch to a county-owned fleet, according to the working group's report.

Rio Amon-Wilkins, a patrol officer with more than six years on the Big Island police force, said he would rather drive a marked police cruiser because he hopes it will offer him a bit more anonymity when he is off duty in small-town Hilo.

Since Amon-Wilkins uses his Ford Mustang on patrol, people often recognize the car when he is driving around after work. He said he sees heads turn as people watch him go by, and it makes him feel uncomfortably conspicuous, especially when he is driving with his 7-year-old daughter.

"In a small town like this, people always recognize you," he said.

Amon-Wilkins, 30, also said the county subsidy of $575 a month before taxes doesn't cover the cost of his car payments, gas, insurance and maintenance. "I'm all for going to a fleet vehicle," he said.

Robert Fujitake, another six-year police veteran, said it makes little difference to him whether he uses his own car or a marked, county-owned cruiser.

He said the higher visibility of marked patrol cars might offer some law-enforcement benefit, but said Big Island residents quickly notice a subsidized car with a bubble on top because they are used to the system.

Shifting to a fleet of 369 county-owned vehicles over the next five years would cost the county about $27.5 million, or about $3.87 million more than the county would pay over the same period if it continues with the subsidized vehicle program, according to the working group report.

Once the police completely convert to a county-owned fleet, the county will pay about $130,000 more per year to keep the county fleet operating than it costs to subsidize the police officers' private vehicles, the report concluded.

Those projections don't include more than $100,000 a year for staff to administer the fleet, or the cost of maintenance facilities in Hilo, Kona and Waimea. The report cited estimates that the Hilo maintenance facility alone would cost $550,000 a year to staff and operate, which doesn't include the cost of buying land or building the base yard.

County Council Chairman Stacy Higa said he is "open to the the idea" of a conversion, but said council members will look closely at the cost when the working group's report is presented to the council's Public Safety, Parks and Recreation Committee on Jan. 19.

Deputy Police Chief Harry Kubojiri, who was a member of the working group, said the group could find no study that shows a reduction in crime because of marked vehicles.

Big Island police have studied the possibility of switching to marked patrol cars at least four times in the last 30 years, and Kubojiri said the department has no objection to switching to marked vehicles so long as the county puts up enough money to pay all of the costs.

"What I would hate to see is that we start a program, and it isn't funded properly, and then it dies," he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.