A provincial ministry responsible for covering policing costs at the Penetanguishene superjail has acknowledged it failed to formally inform the town of policing policy changes related to institutions.
That decision has left the town scrambling to have the province cover close to $800,000 in policing costs for the Central North Correctional Centre (CNCC).
The information came forward during a Penetanguishene Police Services Board (PSB) meeting during which Jeff Lees, the town's chief administrative officer, shared the memo from the Ministry of the Solicitor General. The document is part of this Wednesday's committee of the whole agenda.
Lees said the letter was received after he and Mayor Doug Leroux met with Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop last month.
"We requested her support in getting in front of the Minister of Solicitor General," said Lees. "Subsequent to that, we received a letter on March 3, dated Feb. 19. The letter identifies the concerns we have and says the ministry wants to work with us to find a timely resolve to this. They also identified that the town was not formally notified of this funding change."
As a next step, town staff will be meeting with ministry staff next Monday.
PSB member Brad Saunders questioned how the formula would change going forward.
"It's my understanding that the root of this whole problem is that the government doesn't allow the town to collect taxes (from the CNCC) and offers a payment in lieu, which they raise very, very seldom," he said. "It by no means covers the costs to the town of things like fire and police, etc. Is that continuing to be the situation? If so, I think there's a bigger problem than you're likely to be able to solve than meeting with just the minister."
Lees said the heads and beds formula is one of the problems the town is lobbying the province to resolve.
"I would suggest our first two problems we need to solve with the ministry is the outstanding 2020 and 2021 invoices," he said. "The second issue is how the funding is going to flow in 2022 and forward."
The payment in lieu or heads and beds is paid at $75/occupied bed at the facility, Lees said.
"While it may have a capacity of 1,100 beds, the number of beds occupied is significantly less," he explained, "so we're actually only getting $60,000 in what I would call property taxes, but we have to give $10,000 to County of Simcoe as the upper-tier municipality."
Dunlop provided MidlandToday with a comment on the situation.
"I have been engaged with the Ministry of the Solicitor General regarding the municipality’s concerns," she said. "We understand that the Ministry is working to identify a solution and will have more to say in the coming weeks."
The ministry did not provide a comment even after multiple requests were sent to staff members.
