It’s time to end free ride on state police

Gov. Wolf once again wants towns that rely on state police patrols to start picking up the tab.

Gov. Tom Wolf has brought back one of his favorite targets. It’s one we’ve supported before and one we will support again, even though it stands to cost many towns in the region.

Wolf once again wants towns that rely on state police patrols to start picking up the tab.

But this time he’s offering a new twist. Instead of a flat $25 per person fee, the governor this year is offering a sliding scale based on population. Smaller towns will pay less, while towns with denser populations will pay more.

The scale starts at $8 a head for towns with a population up to 2,000, up to $166 a head in towns with population of 20,000 and up.

In Delaware County, for example, tiny Rose Valley would be on the hook for $7,592, the result of the $8 per head fee for their 7,674 residents. Meanwhile, in Concord, with a population of 17,783, the tab clears $2 million.

There are 2,571 municipalities in Pennsylvania. Of those 1,711 – more than half – rely on the Pennsylvania State Police for full- or part-time coverage. According to State Police Director of Communications Ryan Tarkowski, 1,297 use state troopers for full-time coverage, while another 414 utilize part-time coverage.

Wolf thinks they’re getting a free ride. And he once again wants those towns to pay up. If they want to continue using state police, they will have to pay for it.

We think he’s on the right track.

As you might expect, a couple of legislators who represent areas that would be affected are not nearly as big a fans of this “pay-to-play” plan for state police coverage.

“I’m not on board with it,” said state Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown. “We keep coming up with new ideas and find new ways to take more of people’s hardearned money, and I struggle with it. But if we are going to implement this type (of fee) the only way I would support it is if it’s fair and equal, and it’s equal across Pennsylvania.”

Also count state Rep. Steve Barrar, R-160, who represents Concord, one of the towns that would be hardest hit, among those who question the move.

For his part, Barrar isn’t necessarily against the funding mechanism, but he’s leery that the money actually will go to the state police. Once it arrives in Harrisburg, revenue has a funny way of being disbursed.

Good point.

Barrar also suggested the proposal flies in the face of Wolf’s premise that his budget plan contains no new taxes.

“This is basically a tax on the people in these townships,” Barrar maintained.

Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott said the plan would raise as much as $103.9 million toward the $1.3 billion general fund price tag for state police. But he also pointed out that even with the new fees, towns using state police are still saving money in comparison with the cost of starting their own police force.

There is also the often heard complaint that the plan in effect serves as a doublewhammy on residents who are already paying state taxes and the new fee would amount to an unfair case of double taxation.

Let’s be honest here. Many of the areas hardest hit involve booming, well-to-do areas, which since their inception have relied on state police to respond to incidents. This may have been doable decades ago when these areas were still fairly rural. That’s no longer the case.

These are now heavily populated bedroom communities with many of the same crime issues other towns battle every day – but do so with their own force.

Crime is no longer a stranger to these communities. But having their own police force is.

Free ride? Sure seems that way to us.

Officials and residents in these towns bristle at any such notion. The reject the notion they are somehow getting a free ride on the state’s largesse. They insist they already pay plenty in state taxes.

That’s true, but so does everyone else, as well as picking up the tab for a local police department.

We once again stand behind Wolf’s plan. Call it a tax hike if you so desire. We call it something else.

Fair.