State police funding plan falls far short

Assessing a per-capita fee on communities that rely on troopers for coverage could help the situation.

A growing number of Pennsylvania communities are opting for free coverage from troopers rather than incurring the cost of providing locally based law enforcement. That’s raising costs for state police.

Meanwhile, state leaders are reducing the amount of money state police get from the motor license fund. It’s the right thing to do, as more proceeds from the gasoline tax and driver’s license and registration fees should be spent on the state’s transportation infrastructure. But without a new funding source, state police are expected to struggle to have enough troopers on the job.

There is broad agreement on the need for strong funding support for state police and for transportation projects. But as usual, the difficulty lies in figuring out how to pay for it.

We favor a proposal along the lines of the first two that Wolf put forth on this issue. Assessing a per-capita fee on communities that rely on troopers for coverage serves the dual purpose of bringing in revenue for the state police and encouraging municipalities to make local arrangements for law enforcement.

Too many communities with sizable populations opt to avoid paying for police coverage even though relying on troopers could compromise public safety. Each state police station covers broad swaths of territory, and there’s no assurance a trooper will be nearby in an emergency. Some municipal leaders do this with the understanding that police in neighboring communities will step in to help in an emergency. It’s patently unfair.

Unfortunately Wolf’s past proposals failed to gain traction among lawmakers. So the governor is trying a different tack. His new plan calls for each municipality to pay a fee for state police. This applies to all communities, regardless of whether or not they have local police coverage. We understand that this might seem fair, as the state police provide some degree of service to every Pennsylvania community. But the governor and his allies have serious work to do for this idea to prove any more fruitful than past proposals.

Last week’s botched rollout of the plan did not help matters at all. The fees each municipality pays would be determined by a funding formula that’s difficult to grasp. A chart supplied by state police and posted online by the governor’s office was supposed to lend some clarity as to what the proposal would mean to each community. But it contained faulty numbers and other inaccurate information that led to some bizarre results.

For example, though Oley and Lower Alsace townships in Berks Count are only about 5 miles apart, have similarly sized populations and are covered by Central Berks Regional police, Oley is shown to have a per person cost of $60.77, which is 48 times higher than Lower Alsace’s $1.27 per person.

We’re concerned that communities such as Oley that have done the right thing and paid for local police coverage would be forced to rely on state police under this proposal. The cost of paying for both would be impossible to bear.

Another perplexing aspect of this plan is that the formula factors in the cost to run the state police station that covers the municipality. That means people covered by a station that houses a troop headquarters would pay far more due to the cost of administrative expenses and special operations units based there. This makes no sense.

Perhaps this proposal can be fixed during budget negotiations, as officials have suggested. But it would have been far preferable to start with a palatable plan delivered with a clear explanation of its impact. The administration should act without delay to accomplish this.