The OPP bill and the 1.48% levy
A $1.1 million OPP cost increase drove most of Orillia's 2026 tax pressure — a 1.45 percentage point levy impact, with the final approved levy at 1.48%. Without the provincial cap the OPP bill would have driven several additional points of levy impact. The City should say so plainly and lobby alongside its neighbours.
Orillia's 2026 budget approved a 1.48% increase to the municipal levy — itself a net figure, after other increases (including roughly $805,000 in added reserve contributions) were offset by operating reductions. According to the December 9, 2025 staff report on Service Partners, the OPP contract alone drove 1.45 percentage points of that — a $1.1 million year-over-year increase to a capped payable of $11.101M. Without the provincial cap, the OPP's calculated 2026 billing would have exceeded $12 million — a year-over-year increase north of 20%, translating into several additional points of levy impact beyond the 1.45 points the capped bill produced.
The OPP billing formula is set provincially. The base service is set provincially. The escalation in Orillia's contract is not the result of new local services or local choices. It is the result of provincial cost decisions being passed through to municipalities without consultation.
Council has limited tools here, but not zero. The most effective lever is a coordinated lobbying position with the other Simcoe-County OPP-served municipalities, of which there are several with the same complaint and the same political weight individually as Orillia — which is to say, not much, but together, more than that.
I would commit to three things. First: pursue a formal joint resolution with neighbouring OPP-billed municipalities calling on the Province to share the cost driver detail and consult on formula changes before they are imposed. Second: request a public OPP service-level review for Orillia — what the contract buys, where calls-for-service volume sits, and whether the service mix matches Orillia's actual public-safety profile. Third: be transparent with residents on every tax bill about which portion of the levy increase came from the OPP contract specifically.
I am not proposing to leave the OPP. The cost and disruption of standing up a municipal service are large, and the public-safety risk of an unstable transition is real. What I am proposing is that the City stop accepting the bill silently. The Province has built a habit of cost-shifting because there is no political cost. The job is to create one.
Sources
- OPP Municipal Policing Billing — Provincial MethodologyGovernment of Ontario
Resident input
- This position is newly published. I am particularly interested in resident input on whether the City should commission an independent OPP service-level review even if the Province does not fund it.
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Version history2 versions1 correction
Every change to this position is logged in public, oldest version preserved. A correction means I had a fact wrong and fixed it; a change of mind means my reasoning shifted.
- 2026-06-03Correction
Removed unsupported uncapped-OPP figures. Public reporting puts the uncapped 2026 bill near $12.0 million (about a 20% increase), not the $12.570 million / 25.69% / 3.38% stated earlier. The capped payable ($11.101M), the ~$1.1M increase and the 1.45-point levy impact are confirmed.
Source: OrilliaMatters — 2026 OPP bill pushes tax hike to 1.48%Wasthe OPP's calculated 2026 billing would have been $12.570M, a 25.69% year-over-year increase, with a levy impact of 3.38%.Nowthe OPP's calculated 2026 billing would have exceeded $12 million — a year-over-year increase north of 20%. - 2026-05-18
Initial publication. Corrected the original draft, which conflated the OPP levy impact (1.45%) with the City's overall levy increase (1.48%) — distinct numbers from the same staff report.