Covering towns without local police costs Pa. troopers $600M a year, commissioner says

HARRISBURG -- Providing law enforcement to communities without their own local police costs the Pennsylvania State Police about $234 per person annually, nearly 10 times the $25-per-person fee that Gov. Wolf has proposed charging the municipalities, the agency's head testified Thursday.

Without taking a stance on the proposal, State Police Commissioner Tyree Blocker told a Senate panel that the agency spends about $600 million providing full-time local coverage for about 2.5 million residents across Pennsylvania.

"I have full faith and confidence in Gov. Wolf and the legislature to ... vet and address that issue of the $25 fee," Blocker said. "Our focus is on providing quality professional policing services to all communities in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That will not change."

Towns across Pennsylvania, many of them small and rural, rely on the state police rather than supporting their own departments. But with the state facing a looming budget shortfall, Wolf wants to charge those communities $25 per person for the service, a fee his administration says would raise $63 million in the next fiscal year.

The fee was a topic that emerged repeatedly during a budget hearing in which lawmakers questioned Blocker and his aides about a range of issues, including the overall number of troopers and the opioid epidemic.

Sen. Lisa Baker (R., Luzerne) asked how the administration had chosen the fee and why it had not considered a population threshold for imposing the fee.

"There is great concern from our communities," she said.

Eighty percent of Pennsylvania residents live in towns patrolled by local police departments, according to the governor's office. Advocates of the proposed fee note that those residents also already help pay for statewide law enforcement.

Sen. Sharif Street, a Philadelphia Democrat, asked Blocker what it would mean for the state police if some of those cities decided to disband their local law enforcement departments.

"I'd imagine it would be pretty difficult for you to absorb the responsibility" of thousands of Philadelphia police officers, Street said. He later added that his question was intended for colleagues "who seem to suggest the service you provide should come at no cost."