The town of Perth plans to renew its contract with the Ontario Provincial Police for another five years.
A report presented to Perth town council’s Committee of the Whole Jan. 14 included a billing statement for 2020 indicating that the OPP would provide service to 3,493 residential, commercial and industrial properties in the town for a total cost of $1,791,459.
A report to the committee from acting Chief Administrative Officer John deRosenroll advised that the OPP bills for services based on both fixed costs and variable costs related to the number of calls for service received during the year. “For 2020 billing purposes the allocation of the municipal workload has been calculated to be 54.5 per cent base services and 45.5 per cent calls for service,” deRosenroll stated.
According to statistics provided by the local detachment, the OPP responded to 1,990 calls for service in 2018. The average number of annual calls over the four years from 2015 to 2018 was 1,995.
The Perth detachment’s interim commander, Insp. Karuna Padiachi, also attended the Jan. 14 Committee of the Whole meeting to review the call for service statistics with council members.
Council is expected to vote to renew the contract at its next regular meeting Jan. 28.
Article by Chris Must
