Area townships struggle with soaring OPP costs

Obscenely high and unsustainable policing costs. OPP bills are destroying communities its officers are supposed to protect. Apparent self-interest is cloaked in the guise of public safety needs. Where is the political outrage while OPP costs continue to climb? Who is going to bring policing costs in this province under control?

Area townships struggle with soaring OPP costs

Postby Thomas » Wed Aug 20, 2014 1:22 pm

SEGUIN TWP. – Despite opposition from the six rural West Parry Sound municipalities, police costs are going up. The change is good news for the Town of Parry Sound, though, as police costs will drop.

The province announced last week it was changing the OPP billing model to municipalities from a charge per call to a mix of base fee plus per-call formula. The change shifts the bulk of costs from more populated centres, spreading police costs throughout rural areas.

West Parry Sound’s rural municipalities had opposed the change in meetings with the province and in writing to OPP and provincial officials. They also initiated a letter-writing campaign, asking property owners to write the minister and express opposition to the change.

Seguin’s Mayor David Conn also sat on an Association of Municipalities of Ontario committee considering the matter.

Of the 324 municipalities the OPP provides service to, 207 of them will see increased policing costs; 115 will see a decrease. Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Yasir Naqvi, during a telephone press conference last week, wouldn’t release a breakdown of the costs for individual municipalities, stating that the OPP will be meeting with each municipality in the fall.

He did, however, state that the estimated 2015 base cost per property is about $203. The majority of the municipalities seeing increases will see a fee hike of approximately $100 per property, and those municipalities seeing a decrease are expecting a cost reduction of about $75 per property.

Locally, based on estimates prepared by Seguin and McDougall Townships using the a first-draft model that only charged policing based households, and not commercial property, costs to the six rural West Parry Sound municipalities would increase by $3 million, with Parry Sound’s costs dropping by $1 million.

In Seguin, the change could mean a tax increase of 15 per cent.

Seguin Mayor David Conn called the billing change downloading from the province to municipalities, citing a parallel decrease in the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund, which some municipalities used to offset policing costs.

I think (the ministry) was duped into buying into the idea the current deployment billing model was unfair,” said Conn. “The Auditor General said simply (in a report cited for the billing change) that the deployment model needed to be more transparent, he didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. He didn’t argue against the principle of the deployment model, he simply said it had to be improved.

In the existing model, in place for nearly 17 years, the majority of the billing was based on calls for service.

In the new calculation, municipalities are looking at a 60:40 split between a base cost, based on the number of households and commercial properties in each municipality, and calls for service. Initially the model proposed a 70:30 split based on households only.

According to Naqvi, all municipalities will now pay the same amount per property in base costs, estimated at about $203 per property.

The decrease in policing costs is good news for the town, said Mayor Jamie McGarvey in an email from a municipal conference where the province outlined the changes.

“We haven’t had a vote on the new formula, and yes it is broader in scope than the previous formula, but it should be good for the town,” he said. “I am sure that the surrounding municipalities will have to deal with the increase. I know for many years the town has had to deal with paying a high cost for policing and we have had to cut items out of our budgets just to pay our bill. I have to support my ratepayers and if it can provide some relief then this is good.”

Seguin, Archipelago and Carling Townships are looking into creating a municipal police force to save costs. The OPP would still patrol roads, waterways and investigate serious crimes.

The new OPP billing method comes into effect January 1 with a five-year phase-in period.

– With files from Mary Beth Hartill

http://www.parrysound.com/news-story/47 ... opp-costs/
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