Police costs dog locals

"to maintain Pennsylvania's highways and bridges". What is this all about? The people who don't have local police are now going to have to pay to maintain roads. Are these roads even in the taxpayers area or will that money go to Philly roads?
How much will someone have to pay if you have part-time police? Notice how they left that figure out.
If you have full time local police and don't use state police at all do you get a tax credit? No. Why not?
This state needs to look at raising sales tax so it effects everyone equally. People near the state lines come here to get cheaper deals on clothing and food. They too will be using these roads that we will paying for.

If Hamilton township would just be absorbed by abbottstown they could get through this but they are to stubborn about everything to agree or disagree when the time comes for change. Keep living in the past Hamilton and most likely you will wind up history. this has nothing to do with the good people of Hamilton just your elected officials and a few bad eggs.

Instead of raising taxes look for ways to reduce the cost of police salaries and benefits. These factors are driving the cost of police protection. The Faternal Order of Police is a powerful lobbing force in PA politics. The biggest mistake in the history of PA politics was the ACT that permited public employees to engage in collective bargaining which holds the taxpayers hostage each time a new contract is negiotated. Sturla and Ed Spendell are controlled by the public employe unions.

Hmmm..."a burden to State Police" to provide police coverage. Key word being "State" as in state income tax, state sales tax. Why should local goverment bear the burden, we all live in the same state.

If it is a burden to do their job, then why do we have them?

Local government is responsible because it is their decision not to field a local police force. They use the services of State Police more than my municipality whom pays for its own local cops. That is the reason that it is "a burden to State Police." This is not rocket science.

The article said 72% of PA is covered by local cops. Why is it the other 28% is covered by the state. Why can 28% of PA freeload and 72% cannot? Answer me those questions. Why is it that Hamilton Twp had local police and chose to dispand them and not pay for extra State Police? That does not make sense.

"I want my cake and eat it too?"

BTW my town has local cops. If Gettysburg Borough disbanded their local cops would that not be "a burden on state police Gettysburg Barracks" ??? What about Hanover? York? Harrisburg? All of them are towns with financial problems but still have local police.

note: The 72% vs 28% population is from the previouse Evening Sun article titled "State Patrol Fee" not from this particular article.

Only if we were the State of Pennsylvania and not the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!

We could be set up like Maryland and have a county wide system,

County Wide: Police, Fire, EMS, Schools, Highway Maintenance, just to name a few.

Then again there are too many egoes in this area, that are afraid they might lose some power!

Oneway wrote:

Only if we were the State of Pennsylvania and not the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!
We could be set up like Maryland and have a county wide system,
County Wide: Police, Fire, EMS, Schools, Highway Maintenance, just to name a few.
Then again there are too many egoes in this area, that are afraid they might lose some power!

And that be the truth!!!!

ONEWAY, couldn't have said it better!!!

These fly by night townships can't afford anything, much less police coverage. Townships need to be eliminated in favor of a stronger county government. When will anyone realize this. Uncle Bob on the sewer authority just can't give of his seat of power, though.

wow...looks like "one way" was thinking along the same lines as me..

I wonder what the state police would do if everyone had a local police department. NOTHING!! They would be laying them off because of lack of work. Would the state them kick in more money to pay for local police?

As for "Overtaxed", your an idiot. Have you ever looked at what local cops make. I bet you will be glad to pay them anything when you need to call 911 because you can't deal with real life.

what if everybody had there own police force? then i guess state police could be disbanded lowering state taxes right?

Does anyone think they could have used a better headline?

huh wrote:

Does anyone think they could have used a better headline?

Yeah...could of been Pigs Cost Taxpayers More.

To the powers that be in Hamilton Township, public safety is a game. Let us see who we can get to do the job without it costing us anything so we can pay the Township Manager more money to be her own boss. It is the game they played with the joint police force with Abbottstown, it is the same game they played the last 2 years with fire protection.
Why should I have to pay taxes in my municipality to my local jurisdiction to fund our police department and then pay the same in State taxes as the people who live in Hamilton Township to fund Hamilton's police department.

"I just can't imagine that they would pass this bill at this time with this economy," Egger said.

Hamilton would "absolutely have to raise taxes," she said. And the hike would need to be in the neighborhood of 7 mills to cover the cost.

Amazing what kind of people we have running our township!!