OPP Commissoner Julian Fantino with Prince Edward detachment constable Kim Guthrie

Police services costs for Prince Edward County are set to jump a whopping 11.68 per cent this year, even though service levels are expected to remain unchanged. The massive hike in costs is based on a change in the funding formula being implemented across the province according to a report made to council last week.

Council approved a new five-year contract with the OPP that equals a $4.4 million annualized bill for policing in 2010. The province softens the cost of this external agency, ponying up about a quarter of the cost of the service each year.

Policing costs, net of Ontario Municipal Partnership funding, are expected to be about $3.3 million this year—a 9.7 per cent increase over last year once the provincial policing grant is deducted.

The contract also includes an estimate of overtime costs by uniformed officers averaged over three years to mask the effect of a spike that might be generated in a single year.

The Prince Edward detachment of the OPP employs the equivalent of 32.5 uniformed personnel and 3.2 civilian staff. During negotiations the OPP had sought an additional 1.5 officers but the request was later pulled off the table.

Days later some councillors were still asking questions about the contract renewal and why, if fines and offences are declining, policing costs are rising—by double digits?

Specifically they tried to square the OPP’s demand for more funding with the fact that the number of offences and revenue from fines has declined steadily over the past few years.

In fact, in every quarter of 2009, revenue from provincial fines collected by the municipality dropped, compared the same quarter in 2008. The number of offences fell too.

Overall the number of offences dropped 14 per cent in 2009 compared with 2008, and revenue from fines was 25 per cent lower.

North Marysburgh Councillor Ray Best said he regretted not having the latest fines and offences data when the County was negotiating the new police services contract.

He said he would bring the issue up at the next police services board meeting.

But Chief Administrative Officer Dick Shannon cautioned the councillor to avoid linking provincial offences revenue with policing costs.

“We agreed not to link these issues,” said Shannon. “You may ask why revenue is down—but you can’t ask why it is down and costs are up.”

He said that any connection made between fines and policing costs could be inferred by the OPP as direction to increase fines revenue, which would be viewed as inappropriate interference in the OPP’s duties.