N.Y. Town Law Section 155
Discipline and charges

Except as otherwise provided by law, a member of such police department shall continue in office unless suspended or dismissed in the manner hereinafter provided. The town board shall have the power and authority to adopt and make rules and regulations for the examination, hearing, investigation and determination of charges, made or preferred against any member or members of such police department. Except as otherwise provided by law, no member or members of such police department shall be fined, reprimanded, removed or dismissed until written charges shall have been examined, heard and investigated in such manner or by such procedure, practice, examination and investigation as the board, by rules and regulations from time to time, may prescribe. Such charges shall not be brought more than sixty days after the time when the facts upon which such charges are based are known to the town board. Any member of such police department at the time of the hearing or trial of such charges shall have the right to a public hearing and trial and to be represented by counsel; no person who shall have preferred such charges or any part of the same shall sit as judge upon such hearing or trial. Witnesses upon the trial of such charges shall testify thereto under oath. No member of such department who shall have been dismissed shall be reinstated unless he shall, within twelve months of his dismissal, file with such board a written application for a rehearing of the charges upon which he was dismissed. Such board shall have the power to rehear such charges and, in its discretion, may reinstate a member of the force after he has filed such written application therefor. Any member of such department found guilty upon charges, after five days’ notice and an opportunity to be heard in his defense, of neglect or dereliction in the performance of official duty, or of violation of rules or regulations or disobedience, or of incompetency to perform official duty, or of an act of delinquency seriously affecting his general character or fitness for office, may be punished by the town board having jurisdiction, by reprimand, by forfeiture and withholding of salary or compensation for a specified time not exceeding twenty days, by extra tours or hours of duty during a specified period not exceeding twenty days, by suspension from duty for a specified time not exceeding twenty days and the withholding of salary or compensation during such suspension, or by dismissal from the department. Notwithstanding chapters one hundred four and five hundred twenty-four of the laws of nineteen hundred thirty-six, such board shall have the power to suspend, without pay, pending the trial of charges, any member of such police department in accordance with subdivision three of Civil Service Law § 75 (Removal and other disciplinary action)section seventy-five of the civil service law. If any member of such police department so suspended shall not be convicted of the charges so preferred, he shall be entitled to full pay from the date of suspension. The conviction of a member of such police department by the town board shall be subject to review by the supreme court in the judicial district in which such town is located in the manner provided by article seventy-eight of the civil practice law and rules, provided that the proceeding is commenced within thirty days from the determination of such conviction by the town board.

Source: Section 155 — Discipline and charges, https://www.­nysenate.­gov/legislation/laws/TWN/155 (updated Dec. 27, 2019; accessed Dec. 6, 2025).

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Verified:
Dec. 6, 2025

Last modified:
Dec. 27, 2019

§ 155. Discipline & charges's source at nysenate​.gov

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