Greater Napanee GREATER FOR MANY REASONS Community & Corporate Services 12 Market Square. P.O. Box 97 Napanee. ON K7R 3L4 TEL 613-354-335] FAX 613-354-5991 www.greaternoponee.com January 11, 2018 The Honourable Kathleen Wynne The Honourable Ya5ir Naqvi Premier of Ontario Minister of the Attorney General of Ontario Legislative Building McMurtry-Scott Building Queen’s Park 720 Bay Street, 11th Floor Toronto, ON M7A 1A1 Toronto, ON M7A 259 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] The Honourable Charles Sousa The Honourable Bill Mauro Minister of Finance Minister of Municipal Affair5 7 Queen’s Park Crescent, 7th floor 777 Bay Street, 17th Floor Toronto, ON M7A 1Y7 Toronto, ON M5G 2E5 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] RE: TOWN OF GREATER NAPANEE REQUEST FOR DIRECTION FROM THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO ON PUBLIC POUCY MATTERS RELATING TO OPP POLICE BILLINGS AND FUTURE POLICING GOVERNANCE. Please find attached the Town of Greater Napanee’s request for direction from the Provincial Government on public policy matters relating to OPP police billings and future policing governance. Council would very much appreciate a response from the provincial government to the three public policy questions outlined in the document. If more information or clarification is required, please contact Raymond Callery, CAO at 613-354-3351, ext. 2002 or [email protected]. Thank you in advance for your attention to this request. Yours truly, Susan M. Beckel Clerk Att: 1 Cc: Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) County of Lennox & Addington Council Loyalist Township Council Township of Stone Mills Council Township of Addington Highlands Council Greater Napanee GREATER FOR MANY REASONS Community & Corporate Services l2MarketSquare, PD. Box97 Naponee, ON K7R3L4 TEL613-354-3351 FAX 613-354-5991 www.greaternaponee.com Town of Greater Napanee Request for Direction from the Provincial Government of Ontario on Public Polkv Matters Relating to OPP Police Billings and Future Policing Governance January 2018 Summary The nature of policing and how we look at communities of interest for policing will change with the amendments proposed to the Police Services Act. The Council of the Town of Greater Napanee is seeking direction from the Province on the following three public policy questions, so that the municipality can act accordingly when developing local budgets and safety planning initiatives. 1. Does the Province believe municipal Councils should have the autonomy and authority to establish local levy areas within a municipal political boundary, to reflect differences in calls for service data? 2. Given the larger areas that detachment resources are shared over and the reduced influence of local municipal Councils to deal with policing issues, does the Province agree that calls for service should be billed equally within the detachment or Police Services Board area as opposed to “municipal political boundaries”? 3. Given that Community Safety Plans will attempt to establish the best way to reduce future needs for calls for service in a municipality and that the majority of agencies represented on municipal planning committees will have very broad organizational areas of influence; does the Province agree community safety plans should be developed for OPP Detachment Areas or Police Services Board Areas instead of “municipal political boundaries”? Background Greater Napanee is a rural/urban municipality in eastern Ontario that was created by the 1998 amalgamation of four townships and one Town. The former Town of Napanee was the only municipality in the County of Lennox and Addington paying for policing at the time, so a section of the Minister’s Order, allowed for Greater Napanee to area rate the Ontario Provincial Police contract costs. The Council of Greater Napanee eventually used this authority to create a two-rate system of taxation that was originally based on this differential, but over time never made substantial adjustments to reflect costing or legislative changes. The Municipal Act grants the authority for municipalities to create variations in taxation based on differences of services received through localized area rates. This is common with items such as sidewalks and streetlights. During a citizen committee review of our provision of services, it was questioned at length whether or not this variation could apply to policing (if all residents receive the service from a single municipal wide OPP contract). A copy of the Watson & Associates Report is included for information. The Council passed the following resolution to further explore this issue: ________ RESOLUTION #3 71/1 6: Kaiser & Cole That this new taxation policy consider ‘Method 4” of the Taxation Policy Review Committee Final Report in so far that we take the area-rating offire services, streetlights and sidewalks as included in the report; And finally, that we not leave the OPP issue alone, such that we seek dialogue with the OPP and/or the Pravince to find a clear andfinal decision as to whether or not the ‘calls for service”far the OPP can be area-rated within a given municipality; and that we seek that decision within this term of Council; And that the phase in period be changed to 5 years, with the first year having already been done. Mayor Schermerhorn requested a recorded vote. Yes: Councillors Schenk, Kaiser, Cole, Harvey, Deputy Mayor lsbester and Mayor Schermerhorn No: Councillor Lucas Yes: 6 No: I As a result of the recorded vote the resolution was declared CARRIED. In 2015, after years of consultation, a new billing model for the OPP was implemented which requires municipalities to pay based on a property count system for basic proactive police costs and then also pay additionally for reactive calls for services. Greater Napanee participated on provincial working groups that established recommendations going forward for the new formula being used. Prior to 2015, police costing was based on a staffing approach, where a municipality paid according to the staffing requirements, needed to respond effectively to detachment workload. Under the previous formula, if a municipality had no recorded activity, they could in theory, pay nothing toward OPP policing costs. Taken to the extreme, if there were no calls for service in the Province, the aPP would incur no costs and have to bill nothing to municipalities. It was identified that this made no practical sense. A very detailed process took place to determine, what exactly the base cost of providing an app service to the Province was. These costs are shared evenly across the province by those that receive aPP services, based on an established number of property counts. Beyond base costs, municipalities pay for reactive services, based on a fixed rate per classification of call. Various locations that use app services have diverse levels of use. The higher a municipality’s call volumes, the larger the reactive portion of your app billing will be in any given year. To avoid large swings, especially in smaller communities, a rolling average of call volumes is used. This reflected the reality of 2015; municipalities could negotiate a contract with the app to receive enhanced levels of service or to retain the right to have a Police Services Board for their municipality. A municipality can influence the implementation of aPP resources through local Police Services Boards. This variable portion of the bill also reflected that municipalities had some ability to control factors within their community that influence crime. Base Amount: Properties 7,641 191.35 = $1,462,105 Greater @ Calls for Service: 1.1746% of all municipalities = $1,770,757 Base Amount: Properties 6,942 @ 191.35 = $ 1,328,352 Calls for Service: 0.6041% of all municipalities = $ 910,680 Proposed changes to the Police Services Act, are creating changes to the ability of local jurisdictions to effectively manage the variable portion of their bill. The proposal to alter the number of Police Services Boards to closely align with Detachment geography will reduce local representation and input in the use of police funds raised through municipal taxation. Community Safety Plans will be required by all municipalities but the prescriptive nature of the representation required on the oversight committees will create an imbalance between local and regional input. These changes in the landscape of policing could result in local municipalities being required to cover the variable portion of the OPP bill within their jurisdiction, but having reduced say on Police Services Boards that help implement detachment operations. Community Safety Plans will ultimately help determine how community based programs will be delivered to help pre-empt OPP service calls; but those plans will be developed based on regional agency concerns rather than local municipal objectives. Having considered these continuing changes to both the provision of service, the cost of services and governance of policing; all Provincial Ministries having a stake in the policing portfolio need to bring recommendations forward to answer complex but fundamental questions facing Ontario, regarding the funding of OPP policing services. Considering that base OPP costs are divided equally across municipal users; the particular issue that this correspondence wishes to address is how defined an area will the Province allow a municipality or group of municipalities receiving OPP services, to assess and tax the variable portion of the bill. It is clear from the OPP that they have the ability to attach calls for service data to individual civic addresses. In fact, this data is used to bill municipalities for the calls for service (variable) portion of the bill. As an example, Greater Napanee is an amalgamated municipality with possibly four distinct communities of interest within it. The communities of interest do not necessarily follow the former municipal boundaries prior to the 1998 amalgamation. Council has in the past allowed for a differential in tax rates for policing.