Rep. Tim Brennan, D-Doylestown, has been a staunch advocate over the past couple of legislative sessions for the idea that too many Pennsylvania townships and boroughs rely on the Pennsylvania State Police rather than a local police force.

From his seat between Allentown and Philadelphia, we can see how he would think rural counties need to have more police departments. After all, Bucks County is home to 40 separate police jurisdictions for a population of more than 645,000. It’s probably unfathomable to Brennan that there are areas that rely on the State Police rather than local police departments.

Rural counties like Warren, with its 37,572 residents, shouldn’t have anywhere close to 40 separate police jurisdictions. And that’s really the problem with Brennan’s push to require payment for State Police coverage, as he and Rep. Mike Sturla, have proposed in the past or with a new bill Brennan is drafting that would require townships and boroughs to have at least 40 hours a week of local police protection in order to receive a share of the money brought in by traffic tickets State Troopers write in a township or borough. Realistically, what Brennan is proposing is a rural tax, and it’s a tax we hope the rest of the state Legislature sees through.

By and large, there isn’t enough crime here in Warren County to require more police agencies. We certainly don’t have the population in many of our more rural townships to warrant large police presences. More importantly, we don’t have the tax base to be able to pay for more police protection without increasing taxes past the point of no return on rural residents in places like Warren, Forest and Elk counties. That’s especially true when the state Game Commission takes more land off the tax rolls with game land expansion, as it did a couple of years ago. There are ecological benefits to such moves, but they come at a cost to local taxpayers. One of those costs is a decreased ability to pay for things like EMS or police protection.

Rather than find a way to tax rural residents to pay for police protection, Brennan and his elected colleagues need to find a way to live within the state’s means without raising taxes or fees.