Governor Wolf will once again try to extract a $25 per capita fee from municipalities who rely solely on state police coverage.  For the second year in a row, his budget proposal includes that idea.  It is hoped that, if approved, the fee will generate about $63.5 million towards the state police budget. 

            Since 2003, the state police budget has grown from $570 million to $1.2 billion.  More of the state's Motor License fund - which is made up of fuel taxes, registration fees and fines – is used to fill the gap caused by increased law enforcement needs.

            According to the American Petroleum Institute, Pennsylvania has the highest state gas tax (49.4 cents per gallon in 2017).  In case you wanted to know, Alaska is the least with 12.25 cents per gallon.

            When you look at the tax on gasoline paid by Pennsylvanians and learn that $802 million (about 30%) of the Motor License fund intended to pay for construction and maintenance of public roads and bridges was used to cover about 65 percent of the state police budget, you begin to see a deepening problem.

            The Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) issued a report in 2017 titled "The Burden of Municipal Police Costs."  In it, PEL reported that the state police spent $600 million protecting towns without local police last year. 

            The report also showed that, according to a 2012 study by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 92 percent of rural municipalities and 22 percent of urban municipalities relied on full-time state police coverage.

            The state police provide full-time coverage to approximately 1,290 municipalities and part-time police protection to another 410 municipalities, according to testimony at a 2017 House Democratic Policy Committee Hearing

            The document also reported that one argument put forth by proponents of the current arrangement (no fee) is that state police coverage is largely in rural, low density, low crime areas that do not need or desire a high level of police services. And indeed it is impractical, unnecessary and too costly for every municipality to have its own police department. Regional departments are difficult to form, and it's not possible to contract police services if your neighboring town doesn't have them either.

            A summary conclusion of the report stated that "policy makers need to modernize the unfair, antiquated system for providing police in the Commonwealth. All citizens should be able to receive the appropriate level of critical public safety services at a rate that does not send some into municipal fiscal distress while leaving other communities unscathed and, indeed, being subsidized by their often less fiscally fortunate neighbors."

            While a $25 per person fee, if approved, will help with funding for the state police, it will do nothing to help municipalities already in fiscal distress and could send other small towns there as well.

            The Commonwealth needs to do more to encourage and support inter-municipal cooperation to improve services (in all areas) while reducing the cost to taxpayers.