Sign up for one of our email newsletters.
Updated 30 minutes ago
HARRISBURG – Gov. Tom Wolf is asking municipalities that rely solely on the State Police for protection services to help balance next year's state budget.
Wolf's $32.3 billion spending proposal includes a $25 per capita fee for municipalities that rely on State Police support. Hempfield Township in Westmoreland County, with 47,000 residents, is the largest municipality in Pennsylvania that does not have its own police service. Under Wolf's proposal, township residents could pay a total of $1.2 million. The municipality's 2016 budget totals about $12.9 million, with no money earmarked for police services. It maintains a tax rate of 3 mills — the same rate residents have paid for more than 25 years.
Although Wolf made no mention of the per capita police fee in the prepared text of his budget released ahead of his address, his administration anticipates the new fee would generate roughly $63 million in fiscal year 2017-18. The fee will help fund 100 more new troopers over the course of the fiscal year, according to Budget Secretary Randy Albright.
Roughly 67 percent of municipalities in the state don't have local police support and rely on State Police coverage which comes at no cost to the municipality but is covered by taxpayers statewide.
The Borough of Haysville has only about 75 residents and is the only community in Allegheny County that relies solely on state police coverage.
It's not the first time local officials have faced the prospect of paying for state police services.
A 2012 bill that failed would have assessed every municipality with a population greater than 9,000 residents by as much as $100 per capita.
Several other attempts to assess fees for state police coverage also have failed to gain traction in the Legislature.
But municipal officials have been on notice for some time that such an effort could succeed in the future.
Rick Schuettler, director of the Pennsylvania League of Municipalitiers predicted as recently as last fall, that a manpower shortage and budget constrains made it likely such a bill would surface again soon.
The league is on record supporting some kind of state police fee for municipalities without their own police, possibly based on a municipality's size or population.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
