Fourteen people too many – and Peachland, B.C., taxpayers are on the hook half a million bucks for policing.

Most taxpayers don’t know the federal and provincial government pick up a percentage of local communities’ policing bills, if they use the RCMP. For example:

• Cities will less than 5,000 residents pay roughly 10% policing, with the province and feds picking up the rest.
• Cities 5,000 to 14,999 pay 70% of their RCMP contract costs; the rest comes from Ottawa.
• Cities with more than 15,000 people pay 90%, the feds pick up the last 10%.

Peachland has 5,013 people, meaning property taxpayers there are responsible for $651,600 in policing costs. Fourteen people. From the Kelowna Capital News:

And to make matters worse for Peachland, 2016 marks the first year the full 70 per cent share will have to come out of the annual taxes collected.

While Peachland's population has been over 5,000 for the last five years, the policing costs there have been offset by tapping into a reserve fund set prior to 2012 to help pay the bigger bill.

"This is the first year that won't happen," said Doug Pryde, finance director for the municipality, adding the offset was set up to only be a five-year program.

According to B.C. stats Peachland was only municipality in the Central Okanagan to see a decrease in its population in last year, dropping 1.5 per cent to 5,013 from 5,088 in 2014.

Now, there’s only one taxpayer, and all that federal and provincial money comes from us anyway. But it’s a tough pill for Peachlanders to swallow.

Perhaps the contributions should be smoothed out, allowing a more gradual increases as a population grows, rather than a giant cliff at 5,000 people.