Municipalities prepare tax hikes after OPP 'sticker shock'

Many Eastern Ontario municipalities are mulling significant increases in property taxes and several mayors say an unexpected spike in provincial police costs is largely to blame.

Russell Mayor Mike Tarnowski said his township's bill from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) is increasing by 23 per cent from this year to next.

"We've never experienced anything like it, or anything close to it. Certainly not in my time," said Tarnowski, who has sat on Russell council since 2018.

"A lot of municipalities — I mean all municipalities that I've talked to — are feeling that sticker shock."

Many councils are responding by raising property taxes.

The proposed tax increase in Russell, for instance, is just shy of nine per cent. Of that total, Tarnowski said, almost three per cent will go directly to covering the OPP increase.

Call for a price freeze

About 330 municipalities in Ontario don't have their own police service and instead pay the OPP for policing.

The OPP recovers the cost of policing those municipalities through a billing model put in place in 2015. That model includes a base cost per property as well as variable costs related to the number of calls for service and other factors.

A new contract signed this summer between the province and the union representing provincial police officers raised OPP salaries. The force is now the highest paid in the province, according to its union.

As a result, municipalities across eastern Ontario that rely on the OPP are facing a range of increases in their policing bill for 2025 — and are responding with a bevy of tax hikes to pay for it.

Hawkesbury Mayor Robert Lefebvre said the town is being charged about 20 per cent more for policing next year compared to this year.

To cover the cost, Hawkesbury council debated a tax increase just shy of 11 per cent, but is now targeting what it hopes will be a more palatable 9.5 per cent increase.

Lefebvre also brought a resolution earlier this month calling on the OPP to freeze its billing based on 2024 policing costs.

Failing that, Lefebvre would like the province to help municipalities pay what they owe the OPP by increasing the Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund, a general assistance grant for municipalities.

'Budgeting for municipalities is tough'

Mayors who spoke to CBC stressed their concerns are not with the quality of policing they receive — merely with the unexpected increase in what they're paying.

Robin Jones, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, said news of such a "huge increase" from one year to the next felt to many local governments like it came "out of left field."

"Budgeting for municipalities is tough. We are trying to manage far too many other things — such as homelessness and social housing — on property taxes," she said.

Jones is also mayor of Westport and said the village's OPP bill is increasing by 27 per cent.

"An increase to this degree is just something that cannot be borne by the municipalities with all of the other things that we are required to cover," she said.

CBC reached out to the OPP and a spokesperson said any questions related to OPP billing should be directed to Ontario's solicitor general.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Ontario's solicitor general said the province understands some municipalities are facing additional costs due to their existing agreements with the OPP.

"We will work with these municipalities to ensure they are not negatively financially impacted by this," the statement read.

How the solicitor general intends to work with municipalities remains to be seen. Jones said in her experience, the province is often amenable to finding solutions.

"I'm really optimistic that the government will hear what a significant increase that is, what a significant impact it will have on the taxpayers," Jones said.

"My world is always the strategic world and the optimistic world that the government will have heard our concerns and come up with a plan."