‘Long-awaited’ police options report released, mayor Gibbon

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?

‘Long-awaited’ police options report released, mayor Gibbon

Postby Thomas » Thu Apr 16, 2015 3:31 am

SEGUIN TWP. – Seguin Township continues to investigate the viability of a municipal policing service.

The new provincial police funding model, resulting in a significant financial increase for many rural municipalities, and for some, an astronomical increase, played a factor in this year’s budget deliberations.

The new policing model was announced in August of last year, despite opposition from many municipalities.


Model

The model officially went into effect on January 1 with Seguin Township seeing a 100 per cent increase in OPP costs over the next five years. The municipality paid $675,456 in 2014, saw nearly a $200,000 increase for 2015 as the township will pay a total of $873,657, and could pay a total of $1.3 million by 2019, according to a billing statement provided by chief administrative officer, Tom Stockie.

At a council meeting last week, chief financial officer Michele Fraser presented council with the draft policing options report, including the townships of Seguin, the Archipelago, and Carling. Completion of the draft report was a joint effort between township staff and a consultant.

The report outlined two options: one, Seguin Township and the Township of the Archipelago develop a municipal police service, and; two, Seguin Township, the Township of the Archipelago, and Carling Township would together develop a municipal police service to alleviate the project costs under the new OPP billing model.

The report demonstrated that option one, including the townships of Seguin and the Archipelago, would save Seguin Township $17.85 per year, while option two, which includes Carling Township, would save Seguin a total of $171,356.53 per year.

“Based on our preliminary, without Carling and with the Archipelago, it’s almost a break even based on us not doing this until we get fully phased in,” said Fraser. “All of these numbers, we’ve made all kinds of assumptions and we’ve tried to actually be as aggressive as we could understanding that so many of these expenses we know nothing about.”

Fraser said that the financial comparison using the three townships was utilizing the fully phased in amounts.

The report also outlined a long-term debt payment, a 20-year amortization, of $135,384, taking into account numerous estimated one-time, startup costs.

“Those one-time costs, which, we’ve made a lot of assumptions about, we will probably have to issue debt in order to cover all of those one-time costs,” said Fraser. “The long term debt payments of $135,384 a year, that’s taking the $1.9 million of the initial purchase of vehicles, the initial start up costs, the initial building of a building, we’ve assumed we’ve had to buy some land. We’ve also assumed that there is going to be some pre-startup costs of about $150,000, so for that, we’re amortizing, we’re basically going to borrow for that.”

The report found that vehicles would need to be replaced every three years, equipment replaced every eight years, a total of $30,000 towards building maintenance annually, and a building replacement in 20 years.

During council discussion of the report, councillor Dale Graves questioned the involvement of other West Parry Sound municipalities.

“I guess if you go back far enough there was a little cooperative effort early in the OPP game that involved six of the rural West Parry Sound Municipalities,” said mayor Bruce Gibbon. “But when it came to the point in the fall of 2014 to actually pony up dollars to do this consultant’s report and have them look at the specifics, I think it really – McDougall I know for a fact, they decided that they were not going to participate any further. They made a decision early on to stick with the OPP. McKellar, obviously they’re not players now and whether they would ever want to be in the future is something for them to decide.”

As a lengthy discussion continued about the draft report, councillor Doug Sainsbury suggested that once input is received from both Carling Township and the Township of the Archipelago, a special meeting be held to discuss the OPP issue and future direction. A suggestion positively received by mayor Gibbon.

Mayor Gibbon reminded council that no decisions were being made at last week’s council meeting. Seguin Township will meet with Carling Township and the Township of the Archipelago at a future date to discuss the findings of the draft report before the report is finalized.

http://www.parrysound.com/news-story/55 ... or-gibbon/
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