The mayor of LaSalle will present a motion at Monday night's council meeting requesting the go ahead to send off a letter to Ontario's solicitor general.
Crystal Meloche is looking to begin "meaningful dialogue" requesting equitable provincial support for municipally policed communities.
She says it's unfair for the province to give $77-million in automatic funding to towns with OPP police forces to assist with rising costs, but towns like LaSalle do not get the same support, instead, they’re told to apply for grants, but those aren’t guaranteed, and OPP towns can apply for them too.
Meloche said this year, the province is helping OPP towns again by limiting how much their costs can go up.
Protection that municipally policed communities do not get.
"This year they're saying there's now going to be a cap, so they're capping all of their budgets at 11 per cent, but that's not the true cost of policing, and so that's the concern we have is we can't cap things like that in our municipality. If you need certain dollars to fund your police then it has to be funded," Meloche said.
"We don't have that little pocket of money sitting there where someone can some and offset our budgets, so we're just looking for some parity."
Meloche said looking ahead to the 2026 proposed budget, a big line item increase will be policing costs.
"There's a lot of pressures that we're facing right now in that department to get us up to where we need to be when it comes to even technology and making sure we have enough officers on the road, and all that stuff. So that's what this discussion has kind of come from," she said.
Meloche said one of the pressures facing LaSalle surrounds wages for the police force.
"Our wages, unfortunately, when we go into contract negotiations, they reflect a lot of what's happening at the OPP and so we're going to see those same type of increases in our municipality. That's usually how it works," said Meloche.
If council gives the green light, Meloche's letter will ask the province to admit the current funding setup is unfair, give equal financial support to towns with their own police, and work together to create a fair system for all communities.
LaSalle council meets Monday at 6 p.m.