Callander town council got a jaw-dropping shock last night.
Members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) stopped by Callander’s council meeting to discuss options for policing services that could amount to $1.4 million in 2022.
The cost “is quite a shock to me,” said Callander’s mayor, Rob Noon, after the OPP’s presentation. “To say the least.”
Early this year, the contract between Callander and the North Bay Police Services (NBPS) expired. In March, the municipality extended a temporary contract with NBPS for service, and in August, began investigating the possibility of employing the OPP.
See: Callander investigates contract with North Bay Police Service. May opt for OPP
In late September, the North Bay Police Board decided to end service in Callander, which left Callander’s council with two options—contract the OPP or form their own police force, the latter of which was not raised for discussion.
See: North Bay Police ending service in Callander at the end of the year
See: Mayor Rob Noon 'shocked' by North Bay Police leaving Callander
The OPP was invited to attend the December 14 council meeting to provide information on services, and Sgt. Kelly Withrow led the presentation.
Two options were provided. Callander could enter a three-year transition contract or sign on for service on an annual contract basis.
The transition contract is a Section 10 policing agreement, whereas the year-to-year contract is a Section 5.1, which utilizes “only base service for property costs” and “excludes calls for services costs,” which are tabulated as they accrue.
The three-year transition contract allows the OPP to collect workload data from the area, including calls for service and reporting on the activity of the officers and support staff.
Once collected, this data provides the OPP with a better understanding of the municipality’s needs, and after three years, the transition contract moves to the regular OPP billing model.
“Our current billing model for municipal cost recovery is provincially focused,” explained Sgt. Withrow, “meaning it is based on the services we provide to all municipalities we recover policing costs from.”
There is the base cost for service that “represents the municipal cost related to pro-active policing services, such as routine patrol, crime prevention, RIDE programs, and additional activities such as training, and administration.”
This base cost “is billed on a per-property basis,” Withrow explained, and “the cost to each municipality is determined by the number of properties in the municipality multiplied by the standard province-wide cost per property rate.”
Serving Callander would require more staff, Withrow explained, noting the proposed structure would require an Inspector, a Staff Sergeant, six sergeants, five constables, four administrative workers, and three custodians.
The new staff would essentially be added to the North Bay OPP detachment, forming “an integrated detachment,” and bringing their total staff numbers from 55 to 62.
However, the bulk of the officers serving Callander “will be deployed out of the Powassan detachment,” Withrow said.
Of this total staff, the portion Callander would be “financially responsible for” during the transitional contract amounts to 6.22 uniformed FTEs and 0.43 civilian FTEs.
FTE refers to full-time employees, and the total Callander would cover is 6.65 staff members.
Withrow broke down the numbers, as some of the positions were paid in part by Callander’s contract.
For instance, the Inspector position carries a total annual salary of $165,275—and all salaries are based on the average, Withrow said—and Callander’s portion would be $18,180 during the transitional contract.
The staff sergeant costs $139,615, of which $15,358 would fall to Callander to pay.
The municipality would cover the full cost of a sergeant at $125,157, and the price of five constables for $534,688.
The total cost for uniformed OPP, including overtime, holiday pay, and benefits amounts to $981,152 annually.
Add another $38,065 for civilian staff, and an additional $110,878 for support staff, such as communications operators, prisoner guards, and radio support.
The total salaries and benefits Callander would be responsible for amounts to $1,130,094.
Besides staff, there are “direct operating expenditures” including detachment supplies, telephone costs, vehicle usage, and equipment that adds an additional $96,249 to the bill.
Another $175,960 is required for OPP equipment such as tasers, radios, alcohol screening devices, uniforms, and patrol vehicles.
“These are a one-time cost only,” Withrow explained, “required at start-up.”
Including the start-up costs, the total estimated cost to bring in the OPP for their first year of service is $1,389,236.
As for the three-year contract, and the need to collect data over this time to better establish the cost of service, Mayor Noon asked if this data could be retrieved from the North Bay Police.
“We’ve been with North Bay for several years,” he said, “so there would be a good database of calls to our area and what services we have needed over the years.”
He figured the O.P.P could look at that data “and could base our contract on that.”
“We can’t use their data to calculate what our calls for service hours are because they would calculate a call differently than OPP would,” Withrow clarified.
Councillor Daryl Vaillancourt mentioned to Withrow that “you keep using the word accept,”—as in accepting one of the two contract options— “as if we have a choice.”
“But at the end of the day, we have no choice but to use the OPP if the North Bay Police does not want to provide its services here.”
“That would be correct,” Withrow said, “unless there is another police service that can police you.”
“We have to police any municipality that doesn’t have a police service,” she added.
“It’s an enviable position to be in for the OPP,” Vaillancourt said. “Because you pretty much have the opportunity to set your own price, and we as a municipality have no way to counter that, and you don’t even take into account our ability to pay.”
“That’s frustrating,” he said.
“The municipality of Callander has 3,800 people,” and the price works out to over “three-hundred and forty-eight dollars per person” whereas the provincial average “is seventy-seven dollars,” Vaillancourt said.
The cost “is over 15 per cent of our budget,” he added, and could represent “an 11 per cent tax increase to our ratepayers.”
With such expensive options to consider, council decided to put the decision on ice for the time being.
They called a special meeting of council for around January 15—the exact date and time will be announced—to discuss options.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
