Report: State police cheaper

Analysis concludes municipalities with own police force pay twice the tax burden

A new report by a Pennsylvania bipartisan think tank asserts police departments are a burden to municipalities with local departments while those who rely solely on state police may get a free

ride.

The report by the Pennsylvania Economy League released last week focuses on Gov. Tom Wolf's proposal to charge $25 per person to municipalities without police departments, the latest proposal in what has become an ongoing debate about who should bear the cost of police services throughout the commonwealth.

The report estimates the state police, with a budget of $1.2 billion, costs about $600 million to cover municipalities without state police coverage.

The PEL report concluded municipalities with their own police force pay twice the tax

burden of those that only use state police.

Municipalities that contract with other municipalities that have police for coverage aren't as burdened, the report noted, but they still see more costs than areas with only state police coverage.

"The point is not that all 2,500-plus municipalities in Pennsylvania should be mandated to have and pay for their own local and police coverage in the commonwealth," the report concluded. "Instead, policy makers need to modernize the inequitable, antiquated system for providing

police coverage in the commonwealth."

All municipalities should get "the appropriate level of critical public policy safety services at a rate that does not send some communities into municipal fiscal distress while leaving other communities not only unscathed -- but indeed, subsidized by their often less fiscally fortunate neighbors," the report noted.

At the crux of the debate are costs, but local legislators say there are still unanswered questions about the governor's proposal and whether adding a tax is the right way to address what is a complicated issue.

The state police receives the bulk of its funding from the Motor License Fund, which is generated by driver's license and registration fees and money from the gasoline tax. The state police receive about $800 million from that fund out of $4.05 billion generated.

Sen. John H. Eichelberger Jr., R-Blair, said as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he has heard testimony from the state police about the issue but said there doesn't seem to be any benefit of adding additional taxes to certain municipalities unless there is a benefit, such as a promise of increased state police coverage.

"It's pretty hard to imagine these services are going to be increased in any way," Eichelberger said.

Eichelberger said the governor has cut $25.2 million of the state police budget, which Eichelberger said makes it unlikely state police would increase its patrols and presence in those areas that would now be forced to pay.

The senator pointed out that he is not in favor of the proposed $25 per person fee for municipalities without police and noted communities with police departments do pay more, but they also get more with faster response times and community-based policing.

"They do the best they can, but if they are at the other end of the county or tied up with an emergency or other calls, it can take 30 to 40 minutes before police arrive," Eichelberger said of communities that rely on state police. In Fulton County, there are no local police and only one state police barracks, he said.

"The argument is some municipalities should have their own police department, but in some communities you can't make that argument because they don't have the tax base to support it," Eichelberger said.

In Huntingdon County, Eichelberger said, Penn State owns large tracts of land that aren't taxable and other municipalities include large areas of state game lands, which provide only a small amount of local tax revenue. For rural communities that don't deal with a lot of crime, it would be a burden, he said.

Rep. John McGinnis, R-Altoona, said there are still too many unanswered questions about the governor's proposed surcharge, such as how the governor arrived at that number.

McGinnis said there are different perspectives that need to be considered carefully, and he hasn't made up his mind about the issue.

One view is that the state police provide a level of basic coverage and other services that benefit all the citizens of the state and to single out residents in some municipalities to pay a per capita fee to the general fund would be unfair, McGinnis said Friday. McGinnis echoed Eichelberger's concern that the proposal does not mention any change in state police coverage, and his budget proposal includes a cut to state police funding.

McGinnis said a "less kindly take" on the governor's proposal is he wants to raise taxes and decrease services.

"An even more unkindly view is that the municipalities affected are by-and-large in the 'T' of PA, meaning they are highly Republican areas," McGinnis said. "Given his track record -- line item cuts to agriculture in 2015, cuts to critical care hospitals at the same time, the recent closing of UC call centers in Republican districts -- this is not a farfetched notion."

McGinnis pointed out he represents three municipalities that all have police forces – Altoona, Logan Township and Allegheny Township. McGinnis said that those departments and others, such as Hollidaysburg Borough, are required to back up state police in areas without police departments, such as Frankstown Township, when state police are not available.

"To my knowledge, there is no compensation paid to the municipality of the responding police," McGinnis said. "At least in this respect, and more generally perhaps, the municipalities that provide for their own are being forced to subsidize those that don't."