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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-09-28, Page 1212 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, September 28, 2016 An in-depth look at policing costs Shaun Gregory Huron Expositor It's been more than a bumpy boulevard for Ontario lower -tier munici- palities as they try to navi- gate through revolving financials, and not helping Huron East's situation is the new OPP billing model that has plotted a big fork in the road before it. One direction could lead a municipality to substan- tially lowered costs while the other may lead them down a path to a large spike. Last year, the fee for polic- ing in Huron East went up $190,000, and its neighbour- ing borough of Blue Water saw an increase from $898,132 to $1.2 million. Central Huron, on the other hand, relaxed with a helpful near $500,000 decrease. These numbers do not include the rebates the OPP allots back each year. Nor does it include the upsurges. With 323 municipalities of the 444 in Ontario under OPP contract, numerous media outlets have reported that more than half have already noticed a change for the worse. In addition to these signif- icant increases for policing, the rebates are also declining. In 2013, Huron East had a reconciliation of $180,000. For 2014, it received $111,549, and the numbers continued to fall as in 2015 the OPP gave back $95,149. And nothing has been budg- eted or anticipated in 2016 for the rebate of police credit, according to the Huron East treasurer/ finance manager, Paula Michiels. From Central Huron reports, last year it received a $114,137 refund while it saw a large decrease to only $6,134 this year. And Blue - water was reimbursed about $28,000 in 2015 and it esti- mates that figure will drop to about $8,000 in rebates this year. The new billing model was created from the vision of several communities and the Auditor General, and was rolled out in January 2015. This process was seen as needed as the last model hadn't been updated in almost two decades resulting in some regions paying as little as $6 per household yearly while others were paying $885. Currently every household in Ontario has an OPP base cost of $193. However, lay- ered on top of that is the costs of 911 calls, and this is where the disparities come to play. "If you had zero calls, you would just be paying $193," stated superintend Marc Bedard, commander of the OPP municipal policing bureau at the organization's main detachment in Orillia Ont. Communities that suffer from a lot of "social dysfunc- tion" make a lot more ser- vice calls, he said. "[However], if you're a small community that every- body gets along and there is not, let's say, armed robber- ies, drug addictions and all those things that come with a community that's not well." Bedard added that Huron East is right on the button for provincial average costs and it would "compare very favourable" to more south- ern municipalities. As taxes go up, it's some- thing Bedard said he must pay as well. "Who likes to pay more money? I'm a taxpayer, too, and my community is one of them that is going up," he said last month in an exclu- sive interview with the Expositor. "When the average cost is less than a dollar a day and you compare that to the municipal services, I think we fare very well for 24-hour policing service." To accurately collect infor- mation on where each officer has been and how long they were deployed, each officer records their activities in a structure called the daily activity system. This is a main component to knowing how much each municipality must pay. "At the end of the shift they write down where they worked and what their calls were," explained Bedard. "[The municipalities] are not going to be billed for some- one driving circles around the community." However, most OPP offic- ers have provincial and municipal duties, forcing some of the Huron East council to ask what the local detachment's budget looks like. And since most officers have both duties there is no official number of police officers that can be con- nected to a certified budget in Huron County, Bedard said. "People are trying to point to a number and engage at what they're getting in exchange for the cost they're paying. I guess it's human nature," said Bedard. Not having the numbers for the county's budget is frustrating, said the Mayor of Huron East, Bernie MacLellan. Presently, of the OPP's $1 billion expenditure, approxi- mately $394 million goes towards municipal police service, based on 2014's actual gross recoveries. "The question is where is the money going in the prov- ince? Is the province itself using this to offset some of their own deficits?" ques- tioned MacLellan in a recent interview. "If it's not going to the OPP, then are they just using that as an excuse to just raise more money from the lower tiers?" "We don't know this and we can't get answers on this." What if municipalities decide OPP costs are too much and switch their services to a different police force? The Municipality of Cavan Monaghan was recently dealing with high policing costs from the OPP, and decided to look elsewhere. All municipalities are obli- gated to select a policing ser- vice they trust suits their ratepayers' needs, and there are three options: The OPP, self -policing or a third -party agency. With the Peterborough Police being about 20 km away, Cavan Monaghan took the initiative to take a com- prehensive look at its costs, and an overall comparison to the services provided. Both the OPP and the Peterborough Police pre- sented council with a break down on their Superintend Marc Bedard, commander of the OPP municipal policing bureau invited the Expositor to the OPP's main headquarters in Orillia Ont last month. He wanted to explain to the community in a thorough manner about all the recent increases connected to lower -tier municipalities. specific models in a formal presentation with hopes of being the organization Cavan Monaghan would contract. "They were so different. It was not apple to apples. It was definitely apples and oranges with the way they would be policing in our community," said Elana Arthurs, the clerk for the municipality of Cavan Monaghan in a recent interview. Working closely with the treasurer, Arthurs admitted to being more than knowledge- able on the policing situation that saw the township axe its services with the OPP. She said, the OPP had a specific number of officers that patrol the municipality with an "allocated" number of hours, so "there was no guar- antee that they were in the municipality at any given time." The council wanted at least one officer in the municipality at all times. With Peterbor- ough Police, instead of being shifted from area to area like the OPP, it assigned officers specifically to that particular borough and nowhere else. "They are here during the day, they walk downtown, they're in and out of the municipal office, there is an increased feel that they are here," she said. A steady law presence helped make their decision, but it was the price tag that sealed the deal, she said. When both the OPP and the Peterborough Police tabled their five-year plan, there was no real difference in cost to Cavan Monaghan. Council then explained its concerns, and the Peterbor- ough Police went back to the drawing board and returned with a revised model. According to Arthurs, the OPP's calculated cost would see a 3 per cent annual increase from 2015-2017, tal- lying to about $3.75 million. While Peterborough Police's costs were in the range of $3,614,000. With the OPP, "in subse- quent years, we were still going to see a savings of $130,000-$140,000 because Peterborough would start to come up and the OPP would start to reduce," said Arthurs. "Beyond that it was probably going to switch depending on what the OPP did and that was still unknown:' "Beyond what was going to happen with the phase and adjustment and how the new model would work out and what we would pay:' Arthur's also said Cavan Monaghan stressed that if numerous municipalities in the same position saw these "huge" increases, they could reevaluate their status with the OPP and maybe leave for another service. A verdict, which may have led to the OPP to increase their rates to maintain what they had lost, she said. Bedard told the Expositor that besides the RCMP, the OPP is the largest policing force in the world and his organization is not looking to grow a franchise by any stretch. "There is no financial incentive," said Bedard. Recent reports supplied by Bedard show there are cur- rently 10 municipalities look- ing to explore their options with the OPP. He said the municipalities want to know how much it would cost to police their communities. The districts are Brockville, North Huron, Orangeville, Midland, Owen Sound, Amherstburg, Deep River, Stirling-Rawdon, Aylmer and Espanola. With a force covering a mil- lion -square kilometres with 6,200 uniformed officers, 3,100 civilian employees and 800 auxiliary officers, Bedard said they are more than the small town cops that some people portray them as. Smaller corporations do not have these credentials, he said, especially since the OPP have been policing since 1909. He offered a homicide investigation as an example of the abilities of the OPP. "It's difficult for a 10 -man police service to dedicate the resources required to investi- gate this," he said. It's not just a homicide officer with a trench coat and the pipe, there is a variety of other services." "How can you expect a small municipality to have the horsepower, so to speak"