BCT Editorial – 5/14/17

 


This page was last updated on May 27, 2017.


Police protection comes with a cost; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 14, 2017.

Below is a review of an editorial.


“Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to charge municipalities for state police protection is most certainly an issue of fairness and one the Legislature should address quickly.”

[RWC] Did Hell freeze over?  I agree with the BCT and Gov. Tom Wolf (TW), to a point.

As a reminder, the BCT used to refer to municipalities like these as “freeloaders,” “leeches,” and “welfare queens.”

“On Thursday, Secretary of the Budget Randy Albright told members of the House Transportation Committee that the annual fee proposed by Wolf -- $25 per resident -- would generate $63 million in state revenue.  That money would be used to offset proposed reductions in funding for the state police in the coming years.

“The Legislature last year capped the amount of money from the Motor License Fund that can go to the state police budget at $800 million, with plans to gradually reduce it to $500 million a year.  The fund receives about $3 billion annually from the gas tax and vehicle fees.

“Albright told the committee that the proposed $25 fee is a fraction of what it actually costs state police to provide service to communities with no police force.  He said the actual cost was about $234 per resident per year.”

[RWC] This is where I part ways with TW and the BCT.  If this is “an issue of fairness,” why shouldn’t “communities with no police force” pay their entire bill?  Why should these residents pay only 10.7% of their police bill while I get to pay the other 89.3%, plus 100% of my police bill?

“What would that $25-per-person fee mean to communities in Beaver County that rely on state police for service?  Of the seven communities that have no police force, the one with the highest cost would be Hanover Township.  Based on its 2010 population of 3,690, the annual fee for state police protection would be $92,250.

“Next would be Greene Township (2,356 residents) at $58,900, followed by Big Beaver (1,970 residents) at $49,250.

“The remaining four communities all have less than 200 residents and would pay much lower fees: Georgetown (174 residents), $4,350; Hookstown (147 residents), $3,675; Frankfort Springs (130 residents), $3,250; and Glasgow (60 residents), $1,500.

“PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards noted that the proposed fee is ‘extremely reasonable’ and amounts to 50 cents a week per resident.

“We agree that the fee is not only reasonable, but one that is needed because the current arrangement places an unfair tax burden on residents of communities that maintain a police force.  Not only do those residents pay taxes to support their local departments, they are also paying taxes to support the state police.

“We understand the concerns of legislators from rural areas who fear that a reasonable fee today might continue to grow through the years to one that is burdensome on communities.  But just as no community should be without police protection, no community should expect it to be provided without cost.

“If those seven Beaver County communities believe the state police protection fee is too high, they have options.  They could, obviously, form their own police departments, although that would likely be too costly for most.

“A better option would be to consider contracting for police service with a neighboring community that has a police force.  In Beaver County, there are 31 communities with their own police departments and 14 more that contract for services from one of those departments.  Such arrangements provide communities with the benefit of full-time police protection at a fraction of the cost of maintaining their own police force.

“We have long advocated for consideration of mergers or shared municipal services as Beaver County’s population continues to decline.  The governor’s proposal may be the spark needed for communities without police departments to begin looking at contracting for service from a neighboring town.”

[RWC] Now that TW and the BCT recognize it’s unfair for one group to pay for the services consumed by another, we should be able to make progress.

Let’s take a look at roads and bridges.  Now that we’re using E-ZPass and license-plate photos for toll collections, we can put tolls on all bridges and limited-access highways. I believe they’re a good idea as long as the tolls collected are used solely for the bridge/highway on which they were collected.  The problem is greedy government.

In 2007, PA proposed placing a toll on I-80.  The feds allow tolls on interstates as long as the tolls collected are used solely for the interstate on which they were collected.  PA, however, wanted to use I-80 toll revenue to fund other roads and mass transit.  That wasn’t good enough for PA.

Note: A state actually owns and operates the interstates inside its borders.  What gives the feds power is funding for maintenance and so on.

Despite TW and the BCT’s newfound notion of fairness, don’t hold your breath waiting for them to push for fairness when it comes to mass transit.


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