Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Gov. Wolf looks to get fees for state police — again
Another budget season heralds yet another plan to fund Pennsylvania State Police coverage for municipalities that do not have their own dedicated police departments.
In his prior two budget plans, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf put forward a flat $25-per-head fee for those municipalities, but the proposal was dead on arrival with lawmakers.
This time, Wolf is changing things up with a percapita sliding scale based on population that would range from $8 per person for municipalities with less than 2,000 residents to $166 per person for those with 20,000 or more people.
There are 2,571 municipalities in Pennsylvania. Of them, 1,711 rely on full- or part-time state police coverage, according to State Police Director of Communications Ryan Tarkowski. Of those, 1,297 rely on fulltime coverage and 414 rely on part-time coverage, he said.
Many of the municipalities that rely on state police coverage are located in Berks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties.
A state police 2016-2018 strategic plan indicates troopers provide full-time or part-time police service to approximately 66 percent of the state’s municipalities, 60 percent of the roadways, 82 percent of the total land area, and 26 percent of the total population.
And that number is ever growing. At the end of 2017, 1,702 municipalities relied on state police. At the end of 2016, it was 1,691, and at the end of 2015, it was 1,685, according to Tarkowski.
In Delaware County,
those relying solely on state police locally are Chadds Ford, Chester Heights, Concord, Edgmont, Middletown, Rose Valley and Thornbury.
Rose Valley, with a population of just 949 by 2017 census estimates, would pay $7,592 at the lowest end of the scale under Wolf’s proposal. Concord, with 17,783 residents, would pay more than $2.5 million and Middletown, with 15,965, would pay nearly $2 million.
Two state representatives whose districts cover the bulk of those areas – Steve Barrar, R-160 of Upper Chichester and Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown – said Friday that they don’t think much of the new plan.
“I’m not on board with it,” said Quinn. “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.”
“That’s one of those proposals that comes up every single year,” said Barrar. “They repackage it, they reformulate it, and it still has gone nowhere. My main concern is that if the money is going to be collected in the name of the state police, it’s got to go to the state police.”
Quinn, who sits on sits on the House Appropriations Committee, said he would not have a comment on the specifics of Wolf’s plan or alternatives until he gets a chance to “look under the hood” of the proposed budget during hearings over the next few weeks, but would rather focus on a shale gas tax ahead of any other.
“There are a lot of good ideas people have on how we can improve, but at the end of the day, the first tax that I personally would like to see implemented would be on shale,” he said. “We have that resource, and when I look at our area, we bear all the risk and I see very little reward for the risk we’re bearing.”
Barrar said he wasn’t against Wolf’s proposal outright, but thought it would need some component that provided a dedicated trooper presence to those areas without their own departments to be palatable. He also was not keen on how municipalities would have to absorb the cost, which would likely trickle down to additional taxes on residents.
“The governor said he was not proposing any new taxes, when in reality he is proposing new taxes,” said Barrar. “This is basically a tax on the people in these townships.”
Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott said the plan would raise an expected $103.9 million that would go toward meeting the general fund obligation to pay for state police, but the proposed per-capita fee would still be less than municipalities pay for their own police forces.
“Eighty percent of the population pays for a local police force,” he said. “The current system is not sustainable given the extra demand this places on the state police.”
But Middletown Council Chairman Mark Kirchgasser said that cost would still have to be passed on “dollar for dollar” to residents.
“We have a static set of reserves, they don’t replenish,” he said. “We couldn’t even cover it for one year.”
Kirchgasser said he does not think putting a dollar figure on populations is entirely fair to the process either. He questioned how one could value a person in a small community at $8 and another in a larger community at $166.
Kirchagasser said there have not been any recent cost/benefit studies done on implementing Middletown’s own police force, though council does have an understanding of the costs associated with such an endeavor. He added that Middletown is very happy with the “tremendous service” it receives from state police.
“We will continue to monitor this thing and when something ultimately plays out, we’ll have to have a response in place,” he said. “So we’ll just continue to wait and see what happens.”
Wolf has outlined a $1.3 billion budget for state police in the 2019-20 fiscal year beginning July 1, a 3-percent increase over 2018-19. Approximately $738 million of that is expected to come from the Motor License Fund.
The fund was a point of contention in recent years, as it is supposed to go toward things like bridge and road repairs. But administrations going back nearly two decades have steadily increased fund contributions to state police funding in the name of “highway safety.”
By 2016-17, the MLF appropriation to state police was $802 million, accounting for 65 percent of the state police budget. But amendments to the fiscal code as part of that budget process required a gradual draw-down on state police funds coming from the fund, which will cap at $500 million by 2027.
“It is essential that we continue to fund the state police in a sustainable way that does not divert more funding from repairing roads and bridges,” said Abbott.
The state police have a legislated complement cap of 4,719, but Tarkowski said the agency has not hit that number in years. At its lowest, the state police were operating at about 500 or 600 troopers below cap. Wolf and the Legislature have been working to drive up those numbers in recent years, however, and the state police currently has a compliment of about 4,500 troopers.
“We are grateful to Gov. Wolf and the General Assembly for their commitment to public safety and support of the state police,” said Tarkowski. “We recognize the importance of identifying any sustainable funding sources; to include Gov. Wolf’s proposal to implement a per-capita sliding-scale fee for municipalities that rely on state police for full-time police services.”
Tarkowski said about 100 retirements are expected this fiscal year, but the state police did add 96 new troopers this month. Wolf’s proposal would go to fund three additional cadet classes beginning in 201920. Tarkowski said each class typically adds about 90 to 100 troopers.
“The Pennsylvania State Police is a large agency with many responsibilities,” said Tarkowksi. “The state police has full faith and confidence that Gov. Wolf and state lawmakers will pass a comprehensive budget that allows the department to continue to provide exceptional police and public safety services to the residents of Pennsylvania and to work in partnership with our municipal and federal law enforcement partners.”