Mayors in towns across southwestern Ontario are seeing red – in anger and in financial losses – over expected increases to policing costs.
OPP salaries are expected to rise by about 8.5 per cent in 2014 – a cost that puts a huge dent into the budgets of communities who rely on the provincial police force.
“It could be 10 (per cent), it could be 12, we don’t know yet, but the issue is it’s an obscene number,” Norfolk County Mayor Dennis Travale tells CTV.
Given Norfolk County’s current complement of officers, the 8.5 per cent raise will add $1.3 million to the county’s budget.
Across Ontario, the raises could see municipal budgets dinged to the tune of nearly $100 million.
Municipalities aren’t happy with that, noting that the province sets the salaries but has no responsibility for paying them out.
“Rural and small urban communities will be impacted the largest,” says Tillsonburg Mayor John Lessif, whose town stands to be out $340,000 due to OPP raises.
Asked about the issue at a stop in Waterloo, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she respects the bargaining process and whatever contracts it produces.
However, OPP salaries and benefits are set by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, not by arbitrated bargaining.
Travale says his community is already looking for other revenue streams to offset the increase.
“We’re looking at selling off all of our surplus lands,” he says.
A coalition of southwestern Ontario mayors has called for the province to either freeze OPP salaries or allow municipal input into future raises.
