Rep. Tim Brennan, D-Doylestown, is pictured at the first meeting of the Law Enforcement Caucus in the state Capitol Building in Harrisburg.

New legislation being drafted in the state House of Representatives would share the ticket fines from tickets written by the State Police with local governments – but only if those local governments have a full- or part-time police force.

Rep. Tim Brennan, D-Doylestown, is circulating a co-sponsorship memorandum for legislation that would require townships or boroughs to provide at least 40 hours of local police coverage to be eligible for a portion of fine money for tickets in a local government’s jurisdiction written by the State Police. Such a proposal would affect many governments in Warren County. Brennan’s memorandum is simply an attempt to gain co-sponsors for the bill, not a sign that an immediate change to state law is in the offing. Support for Brennan’s bill, or related legislation, could signal a possible shift by the state government that could impact local taxpayers.

Brennan said the State Police provides part-time and full-time patrol services for roughly two-thirds of the Commonwealth’s municipalities, free of charge. In addition, municipalities with populations of 3,000 or less that receive free local police coverage from the State Police receive a portion of the fine money when troopers issue tickets for vehicle violations.

“Between 2006 and 2010, one study found that this amounted to nearly $68 million in “bonus checks” received by municipalities for work that was done by the PSP while providing free taxpayer-subsidized police coverage,” Brennan wrote in his co-sponsorship memorandum. “Meanwhile, many municipalities across the state are struggling to maintain local police services in their own communities.”

Brennan proposes changing state law so that only municipalities that provide at least 40 hours per week of local police coverage can be eligible for a portion of the fine money when the troopers write a traffic ticket in the municipality. Money that would have been sent to municipalities under the current system would then be redirected to grant programs that support efforts by law enforcement to regionalize, which would reduce local governments’ reliance on the State Police, and to receive accreditation, which Brennan said will improve the skills of local officers.

Brennan has been vocal about decreasing local governments’ reliance on the State Police in the past. Last year Brennan introduced legislation to study a fee on municipalities that don’t have their own police force and choose instead to rely on the State Police. That discussion came as Gov. Josh Shapiro tried to move State Police funding away from the state’s gas tax and into the state’s general fund. Brennan and Sen. Michael Sturla said townships and boroughs not paying their fair share have diverted money from the state’s transportation infrastructure into the State Police due to increased coverage needs while forcing the state to rely on the Motor License Fund to pay for enough state troopers to be stationed across the state.

The idea isn’t necessarily new for Sturla, who pushed a fee in the 2017-18 legislative session. At the time, Sturla said it was estimated the per capita cost of providing police services was $234. Studies at the time showed 9.4 million state residents were paying police protection for 3.3 million people who lived in places where the State Police provided the lone police protection.

Brennan and Sturla wanted more information from the Joint State Government Commission about the impact local municipal police coverage has on state taxpayers and the State Police as well as the possible benefits to the state if a fee was imposed on municipalities that opt not to have a local police force. Their legislation didn’t make it out of committee, prompting Brennan to try to take a different route.

“As more and more municipalities disband their local forces and end patrol contracts with neighboring communities, our troopers are being tasked with more responsibilities that overstretch their resources and manpower,” Brennan said in this week’s co-sponsorship memorandum. “Please join me in supporting the PSP by providing additional money to reduce local reliance on state patrols through the use of grants that incentivize and support regionalization and accreditation for local police.”