Feb 8, 2019 3 min read

In his budget plan unveiled earlier this week, Gov. Tom Wolf revived a proposal to require municipalities that rely on state police for full-time coverage to pay a per-resident fee for those services. It’s an idea whose time is overdue.

At this point, more than half of the state’s 2,500 municipalities rely on state police coverage, and the number is growing. To say the state police are spread thin is an understatement, and to say that they need more money to fund training and costs for more troopers is simply a fact.

Last year, according to a PennLive.com report, the governor proposed a flat per-person fee that municipalities would have to pay. It wasn’t approved. This time, Wolf is suggesting a sliding scale. Municipalities with fewer than 2,000 people would pay $8 per person, and the fee would rise with the population, with municipalities having more than 20,000 people paying $166 a head.

In our area, Canton Township, with a population of 8,242, would face a per capita rate of $66, for a total of about $550,000. That’s actually a bargain, when you consider the cost of running a local police department. North Franklin Township, which recently disbanded its department, paid $850,000 for police services in 2014, at a cost of about $185 per person, according to PennLive figures.

PennLive’s database also indicates, for example, that South Franklin Township, which has a population of 3,270, would pay a per capita rate for $25 under Wolf’s plan, for a total of $81,750. In Greene County, Franklin Township, with a population of 7,126, would be facing a per capita fee of $58, for a total of $413,308.

According to the PennLive report, Wolf’s plan would bring in $103.9 million for the 2019-20 state budget, money that would help finance cadet classes for the state police, which is facing a large number of retirements at the same time demand for troopers is rising.

Municipalities could react to this fee in a number of ways. For low-population townships or boroughs, paying the state police fee, and of course passing it on to residents, might be the best way to proceed. These small municipalities typically don’t have a lot of crime, and creating a local police force simply isn’t necessary. Another option, particularly for larger municipalities, is contracting with a neighboring community’s police force for coverage. Though no officials will publicly confirm this, North Franklin reportedly is considering this option, and it makes perfect sense. The third option is to create a police force. That idea has been raised by officials in Canton Township. If Canton is going to be faced with paying nearly $550,000 to the commonwealth for state police coverage, then another option is almost certainly a better idea. With troopers already overburdened, a local force or coverage provided by a neighboring community can provide more extensive services to the local population.

The best option, it would seem to us, is for some of our local communities to consider the creation of a regional police force, much as has been done already in a number of Mon Valley communities. For instance, South Franklin, North Franklin and Canton might all benefit from such an arrangement.

Whatever the case, state police can’t be expected to continue providing services to an ever-growing number of communities without somebody paying the piper.