When a contractor prices a job at an unreasonably high cost, it often means the contractor doesn't want that work.

The evidence in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's last few budgets, culminating in the current proposal, is that the state no longer wants the job of contracting resident state trooper services to towns too small to hire their own police chiefs or supervise their own departments. Charges that have been steadily mounting for several eastern Connecticut towns and others in the state would peak next year at 100 percent of the cost of each trooper assigned to the town.

The relationship between the state and the towns that employ resident state troopers is fundamentally changing from a way the state can help its small towns to a service that is bought and paid for.

State government is apparently backing out of the municipal policing business.  As The Day has suggested many times, regional cooperation has never looked like a more obvious choice. Smaller towns need to join up for strength in law enforcement.

By last year, after various changes to the payment formula and percentage, the state was charging a town 70 percent of the salary and benefits of a trooper. As of the current fiscal year, the charge went to 85 percent for the first two resident troopers and 100 percent for each additional one.

In 2016, when Preston voters debated the idea of going from two resident troopers to just one, the impetus was to avoid $80,000 in additional costs on an expense that had been around $240,000 the previous year. Even multiplied by all the small towns with resident troopers, that would be an imperceptible contribution to Connecticut's revenue stream.

The most recent proposed jump won't do much for the state budget deficit either. But a town facing an extra $60,000 or more again this year could find that to be the last straw, particularly in light of anticipated funding reductions and new mandates in other areas.

It seems the state is hinting heavily that it wants to reserve state police for assignments other than de facto police chief.

Lyme, Salem, North Stonington and Preston all rely on resident troopers solely or principally for their law enforcement. East Lyme is making the transition to an independent department, as Ledyard already has. They join Stonington, Norwich, New London, Waterford, and three departments in Groton — which is a whole other issue — that employ a municipal chief. Montville voters agreed with The Day last year that the time wasn't right, but a change from resident trooper supervision should be revisited given the state's direction on this matter.

Perhaps Montville, with its new police station as a resource, could lead the way in reconsidering cooperative, regional arrangements with one or more neighbors, including Mohegan Tribal Police. Old Lyme could move beyond its discussion of how to balance resident state troopers — either one, with six local officers, or two, with four town officers — to potential partnerships with its larger shoreline neighbors.

The larger towns with full-time departments have made overtures — Stonington to North Stonington, and both Norwich and Ledyard to Preston, for example. No towns have yet gotten very far in discussing shared or merged departments, but they should not give up.

Cooperation is familiar to all the region's law enforcement. Departments work together in Mutual Aid arrangements and share a "unified command" during large events such as Sailfest in New London and Foxwoods' Revolution Rock Festival in Preston. In cases requiring expert investigators, such as homicides, the state police Eastern District Major Crimes Unit takes a lead.

Obviously the solution for a cash-strapped town is not to pay more for local police than it would have for state troopers. However, the offers already extended by some towns indicate that they can see efficiencies that would make it feasible to share services.

Forward-looking town and law enforcement officials should be making an earnest attempt at best uses of shared local resources. It's the way of the future.