FORT FRANCES — The Town of Fort Frances will pay the OPP more than $3.4 million for their services in 2025, an increase of nearly $740,000 in additional uncontrollable costs to the municipality.
As part of Tuesday night’s town council meeting, councillors received the annual billing statement from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).
In the statement, councillors learned that the grand total billing for police services from January 1 to December 31, 2025, will amount to $3,431,494, or $285,958 per month.
Fort Frances mayor Andrew Hallikas was quick to express his dismay at the total cost, noting it is significantly higher than 2024’s total, which itself was only a small amount higher than 2023’s.
According to the OPP’s annual billing statement for 2024, the organization charged $2,692,370 that year, or $224,364 per month.
Thus, 2025’s cost is $739,124 more than the previous year.
Hallikas stressed that these increased charges are, in essence, fixed budget items for municipalities to deal with, meaning the funding will have to come from somewhere at a time when the town is increasingly struggling to find budget dollars.
“I want to emphasize that it’s an uncontrollable budget item,” Hallikas said.
“We have no control over it. We get the invoice; we pay it.
"But a $700,000 increase in that one budget item, if we can’t find other places to cut that one item alone, could add about a five percent increase to our taxation. So it’s pretty shocking.”
Municipalities and residents of the district have long been paying higher costs for policing services, Hallikas said.
According to the mayor, when looking at the per capita rates for policing for town in 2015, the rate was “just under $500” per household, which increased to $639 per household in 2023.
However, Hallikas pointed out that the provincial average per capita rate in 2023 was $347, meaning that the town was paying almost double the provincial average then.
“This year, we’ll pay $785 per household for policing,” Hallikas said.
“Prior to receiving this invoice, in previous years, last year and this year, for instance, we had the second-highest cost per household for policing in the entire province, second only to Kenora.
"If we look at the Rainy River District, the town’s cost per household is the highest by far. This is simply not sustainable. The formula for calculating policing costs must change to reflect individual differences in communities, particularly small, rural and northern communities, which do have unique differences.”
Hallikas went on to mention that he, along with Town of Fort Frances CAO Marcel Michaels and councilo Steven Maki met with Ontario’s Solicitor General Michael S. Kerzner on Oct. 3, where they discussed the increasing costs of policing in the town.
In his regular report to council, the mayor noted the talk lasted for an hour and the parties had “a particularly good discussion” on the issue and why the town should receive a discount on OPP billing.
“We pointed out to them that this one-size-fits-all formula that often they come up with in Toronto simply doesn’t work for small, northern, rural communities, which have their own unique problems,” Hallikas said.
“And there has to be changes made to that formula, and there have to be discounts available for unique situations in the north, or the OPP is simply going to price themselves out of the market.”
Coun. Maki was the next to speak, and after noting he agreed with the mayor’s thoughts, he asked why a representative from the OPP hadn’t made themselves available to the council to explain why the municipality would see such a drastic increase.
Hallikas responded by noting that the OPP had done such presentations in the past, and that the town clerk had already reached out to the OPP to request a representative attend a meeting to speak to council in the near future.
Coun. Wendy Brunetta shared that the same issue had been raised to the Solicitor General as part of the AMO conference, where she said the representatives “seemed to be receptive” to some of the town’s talking points.
She also pointed out that the City of Dryden met with the Solicitor General regarding the same issue and “did get some results.”
No timeframe on when the OPP would speak to council was given at Tuesday night’s meeting.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General said the ministry is aware of the additional costs and will work with affected municipalities.
"We understand that some municipalities face additional costs due to their existing agreements with the OPP," a release stated from the Ministry of the Solicitor General.
"We will work with these municipalities to ensure they are not negatively financially impacted by this."
Fort Frances Times / Local Journalism Initiative
