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OPP says it will inform council sooner of cost increases

January 30, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

When you see an OPP officer cruising around the streets of Orangeville, that Dufferin Detachment member is doing one of two things.

The officer is either policing the community or undertaking a chore that’s part of the force’s provincial mandate. And Orangeville taxpayers aren’t required to cover the costs of the OPP’s provincial policing.

Police cars have an onboard system that tracks those activities, Sgt. Robert Griffin told Orangeville council when it met on Jan. 27. Officer activity is tracked using a Daily Activity Reporting (DAR) system to ensure accurate municipal billing.

“It actually tracks that officer’s actions throughout the day,” he said. “And there’s lots of checks and balances with this through our dispatch system, through GPS. We also have quality control on the back end to make sure that everything’s being recorded properly.”

According to the OPP’s 2022 annual report, municipal costs run as high as $497 million. Compare that to the cost of provincial responsibilities which runs more than $1 billion.

A base service cost of $189.44 per property applies to every property that is policed by the OPP throughout the whole province. Other costs that round out the municipal bill include individual service calls and what’s categorized simply as Other Costs.

“The majority of the cost recovery is salaries and benefits,” said Michelle Attridge, the senior financial analyst for the OPP’s Dufferin Detachment.

Every municipality pays for the overtime worked. For billing purposes, the estimate is based on a four-year average of activity.

“And then it will be reconciled to actual time spent in your municipality and detachment,” Attridge said.

The bill has a year-end adjustment that is comprised of the difference of what the town was invoiced for and the actual costs.

“When you get your bill and you go to, I believe it’s Page 5 on the billing statement, it gives you a quick snapshot of your municipality,” Griffin said. “So you can see what’s actually happening in your community with this quick snapshot which is really awesome because it gives you an idea if things are going down or things are going up or where we need to put focus to and why things are happening.”

Councillor Joe Andrews was pleased with the amount of information about billing provided by the OPP representatives.

The town transitioned from its former Orangeville Police Service and hired the provincial police force in October 2020.

The OPP costs from 2021-23 were billed under a transitional model. The formal billing model was implemented in 2024. The bill for 2024 included a $705,000 credit that needs to be added back in the 2025 budget.

Another reason the OPP cost was high was the force’s new collective agreement that contained increases of 4.75 per cent for 2023, 4.5 per cent for this year, and 2.75 per cent for 2025 and the following year.

The 2025 billing reflects a means to catch up for prior year estimates and next year’s increase.

Deputy Mayor Todd Taylor said that in business when it is known something isn’t going to go as planned, the best thing to do is give somebody a heads-up before the announcement happens.

Taylor referred to the sharp increase in the current OPP service bill for Orangeville and other municipalities.

“The first time I heard about it was through our CAO that the price was going up exorbitantly,” he said. “It was a surprise to all of us.”

Taylor asked if there could be a means by which municipalities are informed of such drastic change before the annual budget has been written.

“Can we communicate more and what does that look like and how does the process work in your building?” he said. “When did you know?”

“Last year when this all occurred, it all happened kind of quickly on all ends, I believe,” Griffin said. “I don’t want to put blame on anybody because that’s not the case.”

He said the police force was waiting on more information just as the municipalities had been.

“We knew there was going to be a larger increase because of the new collective agreement,” he said. “We knew there was going to be a higher price point, but we were in a wait.”

“When we did get the collective agreement ratified we did send out a communication but maybe we were not clear enough about what the impact of that really meant,” Attridge said.

“The anger was palpable when we had to say what kind of increase we were having,” Taylor said.


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