Small towns brace for big jump in police costs: ‘Nothing you can do’

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After abrupt increases to the Ontario Provincial Police budgets, area communities are among Ontario municipalities forced to rethink their 2025 spending plans. Here’s a look at how some governments in the region are affected by jacked-up police costs.

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ZORRA TOWNSHIP

Prior to the OPP announcement it was raising costs to municipalities it serves, Mayor Marcus Ryan said Zorra Township’s tax increase to residents was a reasonable figure.

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But next year, when the township’s OPP costs will rise by 18.96 per cent over 2024, taxpayers will pay a 5.26 per cent property-tax increase, and 38 per cent of that, or two percentage points, is “due to OPP,” Ryan said, adding it’s a “significant percentage of the increase overall.” Zorra Township, which includes Thamesford, is a rural community of about 8,000 people around 20 kilometres east of London.

“When you get a spike in a billing amount, there’s nothing you can do other than just tax people to pay that spike in billing,” Ryan said.

After hearing “rumblings from other municipalities,” Ryan said he wasn’t blindsided by the announcement, but said advanced notice would’ve been preferred. Law enforcement costs have been stable for the municipality in recent years, he said.

“It’s not to say the municipalities wouldn’t complain about (hikes) anyway, but planning is crucial when you’re budgeting millions of dollars,” Ryan said. “We have not seen large increases in OPP for the last several years, so yeah, this was a big hit.”

LUCAN-BIDDULPH

Residents of Lucan-Biddulph, a Middlesex County municipality about 30 kilometres north of London, likely are facing double the expected tax increase, with an additional 2.2 percentage point increase in 2025 as a result of a 20 per cent increase to its OPP payment, said Mayor Cathy Burghardt-Jesson.

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“When we’re doing our budget, we’re already starting at a 2.2 (percentage point) increase, and that’s strictly because of the OPP,” Burghardt-Jesson said.

Burghardt-Jesson acknowledged a wage gap between OPP officers and other law enforcement agencies, and knew at some point the OPP would have “to catch up” but didn’t expect it to be 20 per cent “all at once.”

“Usually, it’s a very gradual increase and I would have thought that would have happened,” Burghardt-Jesson said. “Ratepayers need to know that’s a bill that we get, that we can’t negotiate.”

Although the overall budget still has to make its way to council, the total 2025 property-tax increase is about 4.4 per cent, with OPP costs representing half the increase.

TILLSONBURG

The municipality, with a population around 19,000 people, and the second largest urban centre in Oxford County, is looking at a 21.8 per cent surge in its 2025 law enforcement bill, said finance director Renato Pullia, which adds 3.88 percentage points to the tax increase for residents.

“I would say that we were a bit blindsided by the increase that we received,” said Mayor Deb Gilvesy.

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Gilvesy said staff are working on a 2025 budget that will be brought back to council at a later date.

“We’ve seen increases in a number of areas, but this, the OPP contract, is definitely the largest increase in the budget,” Pullia said.

The 3.88 percentage point rise is significant, considering 2024’s tax increase totaled 4.91 per cent.

INGERSOLL

Ingersoll’s policing costs will rise 16 per cent, Mayor Brian Petrie said. “It’s certainly not what we want, but it is what it is.”

The increase in OPP costs to taxpayers will add 1.5 percentage points to the property tax increase, tentatively pushing the Oxford County town’s 2025 tax increase to 4.7 per cent, Petrie said.

Although the town is still in the midst of budget talks, Ingersoll is in a slightly more “favourable” position than other municipalities, he said.

“That’s not final,” he said of the 4.7 per cent figure. “It’s manageable for us, but I know for a lot of others, it’s not.”

Petrie said the additional police cost wasn’t unexpected, “it’s just a bigger increase this year than we’ve experienced in the past.”

bwilliams@postmedia.com

@BrianWatLFPress

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