Hartland to meet with minister over policing costs

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Hartland council representatives will meet with Justice and Public Safety Minister Kris Austin this month as they seek to reduce what they say are unfairly high policing costs in the municipality.

Hartland CAO Rob Webber said the municipality will ask the province to reduce Hartland’s annual RCMP cost from $971,000 to roughly $725,000. At the same time, it wants to ask the province to confirm the cost calculations and LSD assessments were accurate.

He noted he recently joined deputy mayor Stewart Fairgrieve and Coun. Mike Walton for a meeting with Carleton MLA and Education Minister Bill Hogan at his office in Woodstock and discussed the same issues and requested his help facilitating a formal meeting with Austin to continue the discussions.

The town withheld the June quarterly payment of $242,666 from the province, which administers the policing contract with the RCMP, after completing a cost analysis of 18 communities of similar size that it says shows others are paying less for the same services.

In June, the town wrote to the provincial government demanding it review the municipality’s policing services contract, which sees 27.3 per cent of the general budget go to policing services.

In 2022, with a general budget of $1.84 million, Hartland paid $231,000 for policing services from the RCMP. In 2023, after amalgamation and with a general budget of $3.56 million, Hartland is paying $971,000.

We believe this is a miscalculation, which accounts for some of the discrepancy, a small portion of the discrepancy

Rob Webber

Amalgamation saw the town of Hartland joined with Somerville, Simonds, and portions of the local service districts in Wakefield, Brighton and Peel.

Webber said since that time, the town has discovered it may be carrying the full financial burden for paying the RCMP in Wakefield, despite the area being split during the amalgamation process.

“We believe this is a miscalculation, which accounts for some of the discrepancy, a small portion of the discrepancy,” he said.

Webber noted the area of Wakefield that the municipality maintained is home to the “lion’s share” of the former LSD’s tax base, including the Upper River Valley Hospital and numerous large businesses, while the Woodstock region took on a portion of Wakefield that is home to “between 400 and 500 people.”

“Of course, this is all to be confirmed,” Webber said. “But, there is a very strong chance that we were overcharged for this reason.”

The CAO noted if the discrepancy is accurate, it still does not completely account for the high cost for the RCMP in the region, and that a meeting with the minister is still necessary to come to an agreement on the matter.

“The combination of Brighton and Wakefield, with 2,000 people, costs $575,000 for RCMP coverage, which is the same cost as all of Nackawic/Millville,” Webber said. “And, we do not have an RCMP detachment or presence in our community.”

Webber said he believes there is a “potential miscalculation error” and for that reason they are seeking relief on the cost and a review of the formula used to determine the amount municipalities are charged.