The 2016 census puts the population of Osoyoos at 5,085 – just 85 people above an important threshold of 5,000.
The same census found Oliver’s population was 4,928, which is just 72 people below that threshold.
Yet a difference of just 157 people means Osoyoos must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Oliver for about the same level of police service each year for the next five years.
The magic 5,000 number is an arbitrary one the provincial government uses to decide how much a municipality must pay for police service.
Towns with a population under that number pay about 30 per cent of the costs, while those above it pay 70 per cent.
For towns and cities under 15,000 in population, the federal government pays 30 per cent of the costs of providing police service by the RCMP.
The province determines who pays the remaining 70 per cent.
There are a couple ironies here.
The 2016 census was taken in May 2016, just before Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) was originally slated to close.
It was also before the opening of the Okanagan Correctional Centre near Oliver, which likely brought more than 72 additional people to that community since the census.
Thankfully, OSS was spared. But if it had closed, very likely there would have been a population exodus from this community.
Osoyoos might have had fewer than 5,000 people when the new funding formula kicks in on April 1, while Oliver probably has more.
The Province knows the hardship an additional $500,000 per year is going to have on small towns like Osoyoos, yet it has allowed this arbitrary and unfair system to remain in place for far too long.
Mayor Sue McKortoff says Osoyoos has no choice but to pay the hundreds of thousands more for policing.
And the 5,000 threshold, though arbitrary, had to be set somewhere, she said. She’s probably right.
But we say the formula needs rethinking. The increased financial burden faced by municipalities is too abrupt.
It’s true that municipalities can anticipate this and put money aside, but the $223,000 that Osoyoos has put into reserves won’t go far if its policing costs are about $500,000 higher in the coming year and from then on.
A fairer system would be a formula in which municipalities from the smallest to the largest would pay their share on a pure per-capita basis.
At the very least, the increase should be staggered with municipalities paying a slightly higher share for each 1,000 increase in population – so the financial blow wouldn’t hit all at once.
Of course, the province may be reluctant to change the formula because B.C.’s municipalities themselves wouldn’t agree on it.
As former mayor Stu Wells points out, there’s a strange dynamic when this issue has been discussed at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) conventions.
Towns and cities that have already crossed the 5,000 threshold, and are paying the 70 per cent, are reluctant to see newcomers to the 5,000 club get a break.
“We did it, so now you can,” they say.
And smaller towns that are well below 5,000 don’t want to change it either because they would have to pay more under a staggered system.
Few municipalities are hit with this increase in any one census year.
It’s Osoyoos and Fernie this time. Probably Oliver will cross the line after the 2021 census. So, there’s little incentive for most municipalities to want to change, even though it hits a few severely.
Still, the system is arbitrary and unfair.
When Osoyoos residents see increases to their property taxes in coming years, hopefully they’ll speak up and urge the province to change this system.
