ONTARIO—While some good recommendations have been made by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) committee established to correct the proposed Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) billing model and concerns raised by municipalities as to their share of costs of policing, a Burpee-Mills councillor says that regardless of the options that have been provided, the cost of policing will continue to be a major concern for the municipality.
“I see some very good ideas and recommendations from the AMO final report. I hope the province will look at all of this very carefully, it is crucial for small municipalities such as ours,” stated Wayne Bailey on Monday. “I think there will be a lot of policing money going off-Island into other areas—we don’t have the crime rate in Burpee-Mills and on Manitoulin as some other areas do.”
Mr. Bailey explained that a system of 60-40 (based on the percentage of total OPP municipal policing costs and calls for service) was one of the main recommendations made by AMO in its report. “I’ll talk namely about Burpee-Mills. Even with the new billing model government we’re a small rural municipality and the policing model will affect us to a greater extent than most other municipalities in Ontario. In 2013 our OPP billing base costs were $115.96 per household, and with the new 60-40 split being suggested by AMO it means our per household cost would be $369. Our 2015 policing costs under the new model would be 354 percent of the costs we paid in 2013.”
“And under the new model with our municipality having 185 seasonal homes it means we will be paying an extra cost of $68,265 to police the community. Under the old system of 73-27 our base cost is $88,892.10 and our calls for service would end up being a cost of $32,877.90,” said Mr. Bailey. “We have a real problem with that because we have a really low crime rate in the community, mostly because the average age of our residents is higher than it is in urban areas. So even when we have low amount of calls for service, we would get no break there.”
[pullquote]“If the 60-40 split was put in place, they (AMO) suggest we would be paying $73,062 for the base amount and $48,708 for calls for service, so this cost would be up a bit,” continued Mr. Bailey. “There would still not be a great deal of allowance for having a very low crime rate. We would still pay a high amount.”[/pullquote]
“If the 60-40 split was put in place, they (AMO) suggest we would be paying $73,062 for the base amount and $48,708 for calls for service, so this cost would be up a bit,” continued Mr. Bailey. “There would still not be a great deal of allowance for having a very low crime rate. We would still pay a high amount.”
Mr. Bailey noted a second recommendation by AMO is for an ‘ability to pay’ model of 50-50. “Under this model we would pay a total of $36,531 on a per household basis and part for weighted assessment. We don’t know what these costs would be, but we would be paying $48,877.90 for calls for service so our total would still be over $100,000, which is still a 190 percent increase.”
“AMO also points out in their report that the auditor general reported that as far back as 1998 policing costs were out of control, and they are saying that the province bargained with the OPP for Ontario to have the best paid police force in Canada. There was also an 8.55 percent increase in 2014 in policing costs, when the general rate of inflation was 2.1 percent,” continued Mr. Bailey. In the report AMO, “also talks about the optimal police coverage as being one officer for every 320 people in Canada, but at the same time they are saying crime has decreased by 40 percent over the past 20 years. So they are steadily increasing the cost of policing while crime rates are not as high. This is too expensive for our community to carry.”
Mr. Bailey explained that it is noted in the AMO report that the province engages in collective bargaining with the OPP on new contracts. “AMO is asking that municipalities be part of this negotiation process and I would totally agree with this. In Burpee-Mills in 2013, 89 percent of our policing costs were made up of officers’ salaries and benefits, or $34,370. In 2015 this would really escalate, as our share of the cost of salaries would be $108,375.30. This is almost enough to put one officer in a cruiser on a full-time basis in the township,” he stated, noting the start-up salary of an OPP officer is $120,000. “And keep in mind that the average household income in Burpee-Mills is $46,000. We are paying for a Cadillac, when we all could have done with a lot less.”
“In the report AMO talks about the ability to pay and using weighted assessment, which would help a bit in our case because we don’t have commercial-industry here,” said Mr. Bailey. “And they say the province needs to consider commercial property as households in the billing model, but we don’t have commercial-industrial, we have farm families for the most part.”
“One thing to keep in mind about this report is that it doesn’t provide a magic solution, this must come through discussion, planning and mitigation funding,” stated Pat Vanini, of AMO, last Friday.
Ms. Vanini explained, “the steering committee included municipal elected officials that have been positively or negatively affected by the new OPP policing model being invited to the table to come up with what possible alternatives could be established.”
“The report provides advice to the province, with more alternatives than the province had given,” said Ms. Vanini. The AMO committee looked at four models against one OPP model, she explained. She pointed out the 73 percent cost per household and 27 percent calls for service had been modified by the OPP when the committee was halfway through its report, and is now closer to 60-40.
[pullquote]“One thing to keep in mind about this report is that it doesn’t provide a magic solution, this must come through discussion, planning and mitigation funding,” stated Pat Vanini, of AMO, last Friday.[/pullquote]
Mr. Bailey noted, “they (AMO) call for four years transition billing to municipalities, rather than getting hit all at once in 2015; this would be a big jump in costs and is to hit our residents and township very hard. Having a four-year transition to pay this would certainly help. And AMO also talks about mitigation funding even after four years. They are recommending special grant money be provided to assist municipalities, which would be good for small municipalities like ours.”
The steering committee has now submitted its report to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and the OPP. AMO has endorsed the steering committee advice to establish a new task force to do its own work on the modernization of policing. Membership will include municipal government and police service board representation from those with their own force and OPP policing.
