NEEBING — Rural residents could pay slightly less for policing next year if adjustments offered by the province to offset soaring costs for OPP contracts pan out.
“It should be less after the adjustments,” Neebing clerk-treasurer Erika Kromm said on Monday.
“We haven’t received anything yet that will confirm what the final number will be.”
Las week, the province said it was proposing to earmark $77 million to help small and rural municipalities pay for their OPP contracts.
There are 330 municipalities policed by the OPP across the province, many of which are, like Neebing, in Northwestern Ontario.
The City of Thunder Bay and Oliver Paipoonge are the only two remaining Northwestern Ontario municipalities not policed by the OPP.
Thunder Bay has its own municipal force, which also patrols in Oliver Paipoonge.
Prior to any adjustments that might mitigate costs, Neebing taxpayers were set to pay nearly $339,000 next year for their OPP contract. The amount represents nearly 10 per cent of the municipality’s budget.
Earlier this year, the association that represents about 10,000 OPP uniformed officers and civilian staffers reached a four-year agreement with the provincial force that provides total wage increases of nearly 15 per cent.
In a provincial news release, Rural Ontario Municipal Association chair Christa Lowry said rural municipalities are facing policing cost increases in the range of 20 per cent.
Lowry, who is mayor of a small town near Ottawa called Mississippi Mills, said small communities can’t afford to pay those increases while dealing with other challenges like homelessness.
Meanwhile, structural problems with how the OPP bills some remote municipalities like Sioux Lookout continue to create an unbalanced financial burden.
The proposed adjustments by the province last week “will provide some relief in what we have been billed this year, but nowhere near the relief for which we have been asking for 10 years,” said Sioux Lookout chief administrator Brian MacKinnon.
“The current level of relief will still leave us 40 per cent higher than last year and about triple what most municipalities pay on a pro-rated basis,” MacKinnon added.
Sioux Lookout and Kenora have long pointed out that the OPP’s billing system is unfair to them because it also includes calls for service outside their respective downtown areas.
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
