Wasaga Beach, Collingwood face ‘staggering’ increases in policing costs for 2025. Here is how OPP works out its billing

[Michael Jack]

OPP says increases tied to salary and benefit increases, return to pre-pandemic workload.

Municipalities across Ontario are seeing proposed increases from the OPP of 20 per cent - or more.

Wasaga Beach officials say the proposed increase for the town’s policing bill next year is “staggering.”

Next door, Collingwood is looking at a proposed 38 per cent increase in OPP costs for 2025.

Across the province, municipalities served by the Ontario Provincial Police are seeing significant increases in the cost of using the province’s police service for 2025. According to OPP spokesperson Gosia Puzio, the increases are being driven by a hike in salaries and benefits for front line officers and the service’s civilian employees in their most recent contracts, as well as a return to pre-pandemic workloads.

Salaries and benefits make up 90 per cent of the OPP’s costs.

“The OPP recognizes that there are concerns about the cost of policing services. Our communities deserve cost-effective policing services, and we remain committed to fiscal responsibility,” she wrote in an email to Simcoe.com. “The OPP continuously seeks efficiencies to ensure it provides the best possible service.

“Policing is an essential service that ensures the continued safety and security of Ontario’s communities.”

Under the OPP’s billing model, municipalities pay a base service cost per property, plus additional costs for calls for service, overtime, accommodations, prisoner transportation, court security and any enhancements that have been negotiated with a municipality.

In 2025, that will work out to an estimated average per-property cost of $399.

Puzio noted that during the pandemic, activity levels in billing components such as court security, prisoner transportation and, in some cases, calls for service saw an average decline, primarily caused by pandemic-related restrictions and closures.

Court security and prisoner transportation costs are estimated based on the data from two years earlier. For example, the estimate in 2023 was based on 2021 actual activity and 2024 estimates were based on 2022 actual activity levels. Lower activity levels in these prior years, because of the pandemic, resulted in lower estimate levels.

In 2023, Puzio said, activity levels among these two components generally rebounded to pre-pandemic trend levels.

“This resulted in costs that were higher than those estimated in 2024, both due to this activity level rebound as well as the salary rate increase,” she said.

In a brief presentation to Wasaga Beach council at its Oct. 10 meeting, deputy chief administrative officer Gerry Marshall said the town’s bill from the Ontario Provincial Police will be $1.3 million more next year, a figure he called “staggering.

“Staff were caught off guard,” Marshall said, noting staff had been expecting a hike of four to five per cent.

At the Oct. 17 Collingwood Police Services Board meeting, Collingwood’s executive director of customer and corporate services, Amanda Pegg, told the board the increase will be about $2 million over 2024.

“This change does have a large impact on our budget corporate-wide,” Pegg said. “We are aware other municipalities are receiving cost increases. Others seem to be in the 20 per cent range.”

Marshall said Wasaga Beach would reach out to the OPP with a request to review how those numbers were determined. That would be the first step in the dispute resolution and arbitration process available to municipalities wanting to challenge their bill for policing.

Mayor Brian Smith noted Wasaga Beach is “certainly not the crime hub of Ontario.”

“To see that type of increase … clearly the OPP have an issue with budgeting and their (staffing),” he said.

Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin said this is an issue her council will have to take a look at closely.

“To have a five per cent tax increase before we even start looking at our own inflationary problems this year is a significant issue for our council to deal with,” she said.

https://www.simcoe.com/news/wasaga-beac ... 9877e.html