District Policing – Reaching Consensus
18 Friday Dec 2015
Written by parry034 in Reflections, Safety, Seguin Township
It seems that consensus is being reached among the regional municipalities to forego local policing. Instead, the communities will depend on the services of the Ontario Provincial Police, even if might be more expensive.
I agree with the decision, and I believe that investigating the alternatives was an important exercise. Without a clear idea of the costs and the implications it would have been an option that would have hung over the local municipalities. ‘Would we be better off with a local force? would it be cheaper? Well, maybe yes, and maybe no.’ It would have been a serious distraction to have left it hanging out there. At least the numbers and analysis have been completed and it seems there might be savings, there might not, but there was a guarantee of upfront investments, oversight requirements, and quite possibly headaches in the years to come.
I liken the situation to a person with a longer laneway who has benefited from their brother-in-law, a professional, plowing his snow for a well below market price, because well, he lives next-door and he wants to make sure his sister is able to get in and out safely. The brother-in-law moves away and the the husband finds out what it really costs to plow his laneway. His first thought is to get his own truck and blade. Yes, it would cost a bit upfront but it would save money in the long run. And it would be far more economical if he could defray his costs by plowing his neighbours’ laneways. He might need to take a loan, and there would be a need to store the equipment, repairs, the time to do the plowing, but by gosh he would be saving money.
Well, it might be cheaper if he can buy the equipment at a reasonable cost and his neighbours agree to participate. But he will now need to get up early and plow not only his snow, but that of his neighbours. And there probably won’t be a winter vacation, and …. And what if he finally decides he no longer wants to plow snow? How easy would it be to sell the equipment, and how much would he lose?
In the end I suspect that Township of Seguin Council and others realized there was more in the way of pain and liability than was offered by the potential savings. That was probably also the case with the other municipalities.
It needs to be remembered that the local municipalities were receiving below market pricing for their policing costs up until this year. It can be argued that the previous pricing was fair because these municipalities made limited use of policing services. That may be true, but it’s a little like health care coverage. Although I may not require the types of services that are used by many others I am still required to pay a similar amount in terms of federal and provincial taxes as those who do. It’s effectively an insurance plan and I consider myself fortunate that I only have to pay for coverage and not use the services. Going forward the OPP costs are now scaled to include basic ‘insurance’ and a ‘usage’ component. The less you require, the lower your policing bill. But there will always be a basic cost that is a function of your population. It’s like an automobile insurance policy with an annual premium and a deductible. Have too many accidents or tickets and your policy cost will go up. But even if you are a perfect and lucky driver you still will be paying more for your basic premium than you think is fair.
I take care of my own snow rather than use a service. The area is small, I can do a more careful job and at the same time protect the landscaping. I also have the time, and in the process get some exercise and save a few bucks. And I prefer to enjoy the snow rather than ‘get away’, so it all lines up. If I had a larger piece of property I would surely toy with the idea of getting bigger equipment, but I hope in the end I would make the right decision and hire a professional with the equipment to get the job done.
MetrolandMedia has good coverage of the policing issue at www.parrysound.com if you want to dig into the details.
Eyes Wide Open (Parry Sound in Colour)
No comments
December 18, 2015 at 11:29 am
The OPP cost matrix keeps changing and has been heavily criticized. Not knowing what your costs will be exactly and having no control over your budget is a serious issue. Wasaga Beach found themselves forced to pay for a lot more officers than they wanted. Sometimes having control is even worth paying more for. Perhaps there is even some benefit to the police force being directly responsible to council and the municipality they serve. Either way, it is a complex and involved decision.
December 20, 2015 at 3:03 pm
The problem with your snow plowing analogy is that there is a true competitive market for snow plowing which ensures that the “market price” is actually a market price. Thus, the guy in your analogy, while he would be in for a rude awakening when he stopped receiving the discounted plowing and started having to pay market price, he could still nevertheless find some comfort in knowing that the price was fair and he was not being ripped off.
I am not a free-market zealot, and a normally disagree with those who are, but this is one case where they would have a valid point. Without true free market competition for policing, the OPP monopoly is able to set almost any price it pleases, and there is little impetus to find efficiencies and reduce costs. Repainting all the cruisers just a few years back was a great example: what value did that add to the actual service of law enforcement? Yet we paid for it! Bottom line is, we have no way of knowing whether we are paying a fair market price or not, and when you look at the numbers, it sure feels like it should be able to be done for cheaper.
A better analogy might be phone service. In the olden days it was just MA Bell with no competition. Now days there is competition, but regulation is such that we are still not getting a truly competitive market, and the prices we pay for cell service reflect that: study after study has shown that Canadians have the highest cell phone bills in the world. So as per your analogy, maybe we investigate the possibility of setting up our own cell network. But then we find the cost is absolutely prohibitive, and it is much cheaper to just keep paying bell or Rogers. It doesn’t follow from that, though, that we are getting a good deal: we aren’t.
December 20, 2015 at 3:07 pm
Hit reply too soon. Meant to say: the larger company – be it Bell or the OPP, benefits from the economy of scale, and so it is a given that they can achieve a better price than a small provider. That they are giving a better price doesn’t mean they are giving the best price though. It just means that they have that benefit from scale while we do not.
December 24, 2015 at 8:08 pm
Merry Christmas Joe….enjoy your blog