§ 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
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.