Whitestone OPP costs increasing 329%

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?

Whitestone OPP costs increasing 329%

Postby Thomas » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:16 pm

WHITESTONE – If how much a municipality’s OPP costs are increasing under the new billing model were a sport, Whitestone would get the gold medal.

The municipality received its estimated policing bill for 2015 and the increase is nothing short of astronomical. In 2014, Whitestone paid roughly $101,000 to the West Parry Sound OPP service. The estimated policing cost for 2019 is $434,000 — an increase of 329 per cent over the next four years.


“Whitestone in the past has brought our tax rate down quite a bit and a lot of the gains that we’ve had in regards to our tax rate, the potential’s there to lose those gains to cover the OPP cost increase,” Mayor Chris Armstrong says. “We’re not getting any increase in service, we’re just getting a larger bill.”

To make the transition easier, the OPP has provided a phase-in amount to many municipalities, meaning Whitestone won’t pay the full $434,000 until 2019. But Whitestone’s phase-in cost is still $172,000, resulting in a 70 per cent rise for 2015 alone and a 70 per cent increase every year until 2019.

“We’re currently in the budget process right now,” Armstrong says. “I’m sure the OPP cost increase is going to have an impact on our budget. At this point it’s too early to say what the final effect is going to be. And the other part is it’s not only going to affect this year’s budget. It’s also going to affect future years budgets because it’s a phased-in amount.”

In Whitestone currently, Armstrong says a one per cent tax increase is about $17,000. If taxpayers were to absorb the entire OPP cost for 2015, that would mean a four per cent tax increase this year alone — or a 20 per cent increase over the next five years. But Armstrong says council will likely be looking at other avenues of funding the increase, though whatever method they choose will still have an adverse effect.

“We’re not going to be able to raise our ratepayers taxes the full amount, so the potential’s there for reducing capital projects just because of that,” he says. “And when capital projects are reduced, a lot of that time it’s into the roads department.”

The reason Whitestone’s bill is so large boils down to the number of households in its community. The new billing model charges municipalities for OPP based on number of households, rather than calls for service, and Whitestone has 1,777 properties eligible, which results in a cost of $244 per household. But not all of those properties are permanent residents.

“Eighty per cent of our tax base are seasonal residents,” Armstrong says. “Seasonal properties can be used two weeks a year, some are used extensively throughout the year. It should have been based on a permanent population figure versus by household.” The other thing Armstrong believes should have been done to mitigate costs was charging unorganized townships for OPP use.

“There’s still a flaw in the system. One of the major things is there was supposed to be a fairness to the way OPP costing was done,” he says. “There’s still a large percentage of the province that has unorganized municipalities and the organized townships are paying for the OPP costs of the unorganized because there’s no tax system in place for the unorganized to be billed OPP costing. There’s still some unfairness in the system.”

Armstrong was involved in a delegation of West Parry Sound municipal members who lobbied the minister in Toronto last year about the OPP billing model. The result was discouraging. “It was basically, they were going to do what they were going to do without listening to the input from the municipalities,” Armstrong says.

Whitestone budget deliberations are just getting underway, and Armstrong says more discussion about how to fund the increased OPP bill will be had as they get further through the process.

“Any increase in a levy of a major percent wise is a major hit to a municipality,” he says. “Unfortunately, we can’t input any cost-saving measures in regards to levies, so we have to implement cost-saving measures elsewhere our budget. At the end of the day it does make the current level of service we provide to our ratepayers that much more difficult.”

http://www.parrysound.com/news-story/53 ... sing-329-/
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

Return to Unsustainable Policing Costs

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 27 guests

cron