County continues to turn wheels on 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?

County continues to turn wheels on OPP costs

Postby Thomas » Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:09 pm

While the provincial government has decided on the new OPP billing model it will bring into effect in 2015, Haliburton County continues to try to find ways to mitigate the financial burden of the new formula and to address the issue of sustainability of policing costs.

Collectively, Haliburton County’s OPP bill will double from approximately $3.3 million to more than $6.5 million during the next five years under the formula.
There will be no increase in service.

Redistributing OPP costs on a per household basis throughout the province, the model weights seasonal residences evenly with year-round ones and so is hitting cottage communities hard.

While there is a five-year, phase-in period for the new model, capping the increases in municipalities’ bills at $40 per property, County Warden Dave Burton reiterated that Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Yasir Naqvi has indicated there will be no additional mitigation funding for negatively impacted municipalities.

The District of Muskoka, which will also see a drastic increase in its OPP bill, commissioned a study looking at the viability of creating its own force, but treasurer Laura Janke said the conclusion of that study was that a local force was not feasible.

Earlier this year, the county and Muskoka attained data from MPAC that Janke used to run alternative model options and the treasurer said she and the director of finance for Muskoka have been discussing if there are other ways that data may be used.

Janke pointed out that when municipalities receive funding from upper levels of government, it is based on permanent population and suggested that if seasonal residents were going to be included in OPP billing, perhaps they should also be included when the county received its gas tax rebate from the federal government.

“A number of things are funded based on permanent population,” she said. “Our wheels are still turning as to what else we could possibly do.”

Dysart et al Reeve Murray Fearrey said he wanted the county to look into the OPP’s boat program to see if municipalities were being charged extra, per day fees for having the county’s singular police boat visit them.

The new model will divide policing bills 60/40 – 60 per cent for fixed, base costs that will amount to $203 per household, and 40 per cent based on per call service.

Fearrey said he’d like to see what kind of calls local officers are getting during the increased call period of the summer and if they are more serious in nature.

“I’d like to see how serious the difference is,” Fearrey said. “To me, that’s critical.”

Algonquin Highlands Reeve Carol Moffatt said she’d previously tried to attain such data but that the OPP said it was difficult to break down the types of calls since they overlap – a call about an assault could simultaneously be a call about a drug crime.

The new model is to include a new categorization system and more detailed accounting of the types of calls OPP officers are getting, so that municipalities can better plan for and achieve crime and call reduction.

“Sustainability is the other issue,” Moffatt said, referring to the ever-increasing cost of policing. “Are we going to do something with that?”

Burton said he believed a committee on the sustainability of OPP costs was being put together through the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and that the county or its townships should try to land a spot on that committee.

Salaries, benefits and overtime make up 85 per cent of OPP costs. OPP officers received an 8.55 per cent salary increase in 2014.

By Chad Ingram

http://www.newspapers-online.com/haliburton/?p=5752
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