‘Shocked and disgusted’: Spike in OPP costs catching Ontario towns off guard

A spike successful the outgo of contracting the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is catching immoderate towns by surprise, leaving 1 politician feeling “shocked and disgusted.”

The OPP, which provides policing to 329 municipalities successful Ontario, told Global News the terms for its services is going up adjacent twelvemonth fixed an summation successful workload and a large wage bump for its officers.

That summation volition construe otherwise crossed the province, but municipalities similar Collingwood and the Town of Greater Napanee are feeling caught disconnected guard.

“I don’t cognize however we’re going to woody with this.… It’s conscionable not just to our assemblage to get this level of deed for 1 year,” Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin said during a Monday assembly meeting.

“I’m wholly shocked and disgusted, and we’ll beryllium pursuing this.”

During that assembly meeting, Collingwood main administrative serviceman Sonya Skinner laid retired what the impacts would be.

Skinner said the municipality got its billing announcement 2 weeks ago, and “it was rather a spot higher than expected.”

How high? Roughly $1.94 cardinal higher, she added.

“We were billed astir $5.71 cardinal past twelvemonth to screen 2024, and the measure that we conscionable received is astir $7.11 cardinal … which is 37 per cent higher than the erstwhile year,” Skinner said.

“It was somewhat astonishing. We did not person connection successful beforehand that this benignant of alteration was expected, though I bash recognize determination were media releases successful the summertime astir caller agreements that were made with officers successful the national astatine the OPP, and determination whitethorn beryllium different items that are affecting the budget.”

In the summer, the OPP and Ontario Provincial Police Association ratified a four-year deal that has made its officers the highest paid successful the province.

The declaration covers 2023 to 2026 and the officers volition spot raises of 4.75 per cent retroactive to the archetypal twelvemonth of the deal, followed by an summation of 4.5 per cent successful the 2nd twelvemonth and 2.75 per cent successful each of the past 2 years of the deal. By the clip the woody is up, a first-class constable volition gain a salary of $123,194.

Gosia Puzio, a spokesperson for the OPP, told Global News wage and benefits relationship for astir 90 per cent of OPP municipal policing costs. Under the Community Safety and Policing Act, policing wage and benefits are paid for by the municipalities policed by the OPP, Puzio said.

Furthermore, Puzio said a instrumentality to “pre-pandemic workload levels” is being reflected successful the 2025 bills.

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“Under the existent OPP billing model, each municipalities are paying the aforesaid basal services outgo per property, positive further costs for calls for service, overtime, accommodations, cleaning services, captive transportation, tribunal information and enhancements. The second charges are added to the municipal measure lone if applicable and/or are specified successful the contract,” Puzio said successful an email.

“During the pandemic, enactment levels successful billing components specified arsenic tribunal security, captive proscription and, successful immoderate cases, calls for work saw an mean decline, chiefly caused by pandemic-related restrictions and closures. The diminution successful enactment successful these components was reflected successful reconciled costs, which, connected average, were little than what would person been expected based connected information trends.”

Each municipality receives an yearly billing connection for the pursuing twelvemonth earlier the commencement of that year, and the estimated mean outgo per spot for 2025 is $399, Puzio added.

“While this is the highest per spot outgo since the implementation of the OPP Billing Model successful 2015, this outgo continues to comparison favourably to different constabulary services successful Ontario,” Puzio said.

Terry Richardson, the politician of Napanee, told Global News its OPP costs person gone up 23 per cent – a $928,000 leap that translates to a six per cent taxation summation connected the town’s levy.

Richardson said the municipality has “done a batch of things” to effort and support the levy low.

“We’ve looked for efficiencies, we’ve recovered efficiencies and sometimes erstwhile you find efficiencies it comes astatine the outgo of work levels,” helium said.

“It’s disheartening astatine times, and with the things that are going connected we truly weren’t expecting an summation of this magnitude. It’s the azygous largest enactment point connected our operating superior budget.”

In Collingwood, the OPP summation could correspond a 7 per cent taxation bump connected adjacent year’s spot bills, officials said.

“(A) 7 per cent spot taxation summation without adjacent looking astatine our ain issues we’re going to person to person due to the fact that our ain staffing costs person gone up,” Hamlin said.

“This is simply a unspeakable happening we’re going to person to woody with.”

— with files from Fawwaz Muhammad-Yusuf and The Canadian Press