Letter to the editor: Paying for police

Regarding the article “Local officials say paying for state police would be tough pill to swallow”: When is it ever enough? We in Penn Township are known as a bedroom community while having little business. With our own million-plus 2019-20 township budget, our police have been allotted over $4 million of it, which equates to using 43.9% of the money.

And now comes Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to charge our township an additional $367,309 for covering our portion of state police costs. It’s not enough that we are already paying for state police through our high state gasoline taxes; he wants more.

The governor uses local population and median income to reach his projected charges, while totally disregarding what areas having their own police already pay per individual for their own local police coverage. What an insult!

Marian Szmyd

Penn Township, Westmoreland County