Taxation without a say

Policing costs run on a blank cheque signed by property taxpayers

When does it break? How long can municipal funding run on obligations councils cannot afford and costs they cannot control?

Prince Edward County’s policing bill will rise 11 per cent next year, on top of an 11 per cent increase this year. The municipality pays for local policing. It does not set the price. Each year, the OPP hands Shire Hall a bigger bill. Each year, Shire Hall pays.

Police services board members grumble. A sharply worded letter or two follows. Then the money goes out the door.

That is the extent of local control—in the County and across rural Ontario: the power to pay, without the power to decide.

As the police board chair, Casey Hill, noted in a memo to council this week, “a municipality has virtually no say in setting OPP contract budgets or in wage negotiations while the province has collectively bargained to a settlement making OPP officers the highest paid in Ontario.”

Next year, Prince Edward County will spend $6 million on policing—about $374 per property taxpayer. The population is not growing at anything like the same pace. Crime rates are not rising. So what, exactly, justifies the surge in the OPP’s bill?

A new census count, due in the spring, is expected to show an anaemic annual population growth of one per cent or less over the past five years. According to a police services report in August violent crime, property crime, mental health occurrences and collisions are down on average 35 per cent.

The Police Board member’s memo points chiefly to wages, benefits and provincial billing rules—not a demonstrated surge in local crime. Compensation accounts for about 83 per cent of the OPP invoice, and the 2027 estimate includes a three per cent salary assumption and a three per cent frontline patrol premium. A prior-year adjustment adds to the calculated bill.

It is an unsustainable arrangement. The province orders dinner, negotiates the waiter’s salary and sends the County the bill. The unfairness is built into the billing model: the County must balance its books while the province writes cheques on its account.

Rising policing costs inevitably renew interest in alternative service providers. Belleville, Hastings and Prince Edward already share ambulance and emergency medical services. Why not explore a regional police service?

The board memo offers one reason to examine the idea: “Leaving overtime aside, an OPP first class constable earns annually $123,194.00 while a Belleville constable earns $115,834.” That is a difference of $7,360 per constable per year. Across 40 comparable constable positions, the annual difference would be $294,400—before accounting for benefits, staffing mix and other operating costs.

Other savings may also be possible. But changing providers does not mean escaping provincial requirements. The province maintains a tight grip on policing standards and compliance. A municipality can choose a different police provider, but it cannot opt out of provincial standards, oversight or labour rules. Leaving the OPP may offer greater local influence over policing arrangements, but it does not deliver complete control over costs. Provincial standards still determine what services must be delivered, while collective bargaining and arbitration constrain spending decisions.

There are precedents worth examining. In 2018, the Town of St. Marys and the Township of Perth South contracted with Stratford Police for policing services. In a formal review in 2021, the St. Marys Community Policing Advisory Committee described the arrangement as a “strong operational and financial success.” Perth South has also described the switch as successful, citing more predictable costs than under the OPP.

These examples do not guarantee that a regional service would be cheaper here. They do suggest that alternatives deserve a serious review.

The broader question, however, is one of fiscal responsibility. If the province controls the major drivers of policing costs, municipalities should not be expected to absorb the resulting increases without either meaningful influence over those decisions or provincial funding that reflects their limited fiscal capacity.