South Bruce Peninsula council is looking to Queen's Park for answers on why they are paying more than their neighbours for policing.
Council has asked Bruce-Grey Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker for an explanation of the formula used to determine the number OPP officers assigned to each community, amid concerns that seasonal residences are counted year-round.
Mayor Janice Jackson says the OPP bills them based on calls for service and the number of households in the municipality, but says the OPP considers seasonal trailers as full-time households even though most are empty for the majority of the year.
She says they have asked MPAC for more information on the number of trailers that are considered to be households in the municipality, but in the meantime, are asking the province to consider reducing the number of officers assigned per-capita.
Jackson says the end result of the billing formula is that South Bruce Peninsula pays significantly more for policing than its neighbours, pointing out they budgeted $2.2-million for OPP policing in 2016.
Neighbouring municipality Georgian Bluffs budgeted $1.4-million despite having a slightly larger population, while Arran-Elderslie and Northern Bruce Peninsula each budgeted $1.1-million for the OPP last year.
"Our job here is to do the best that we can with our taxpayer dollars and when we see that kind of money going out for policing when our neighbouring communities with the same population is paying half of what we're paying, it's very, very frustrating," says Jackson. "It's something we're not going to give up on."
Jackson says 30-cents of every tax dollar in South Bruce Peninsula goes toward policing, adding they have also looked into a municipal police force, as well as a shared police force with neighbours as a way of cutting policing costs.
