Owen Sound's police board has started the ball rolling on its plan to review the police service with a goal of finding potential operational savings.

Garth Pierce, chair of the Owen Sound Police Service board, said a motion was passed at last week's meeting to retain a consultant and approve a terms of reference for the review, which city council asked the board to undertake after it received a costing from the OPP.

“Our discussion was that we would engage a consultant to assist us in that matter and to go through every aspect of service and see where there might be opportunities to save,” Pierce said in an interview.

He said the board also asked police Chief Bill Sornberger to discuss the review with Levack Management Consulting and find out how much the company would charge to serve as consultants for the project.

Levack is the same company the city hired to analyze the OPP costing and compare it with the current service provided by the Owen Sound Police Service.

“They have all the facts and figures about the OPP and the issues so we're going to give them our criteria and what we want to have done and have them give us a cost,” Pierce said.

He said he is confident the review will be completed by fall.

Council voted in January 2016 to seek a proposal from the OPP on policing Owen Sound. The motion followed an announcement that council would review almost all city services to see if they are being run as efficiently as possible.

The OPP costing was received in September and three months later Levack Management presented an “apples to apples comparison” between the OPP's proposal and the current city police service, which will cost property taxpayers about $7.5 million this year.

The comparison concluded the OPP would cost about $4.9 million more than the city police in Year 1 due to start-up and severance/pension-related costs. In both 2019 and 2020, the OPP would cost about $700,000 more.

However, from 2021 to 2027 the OPP's cost would be about $1 million less each year than the city police. Those costs were calculated using a current OPP costing formula, which includes a base fee and takes into account calls for service and other expenses like for overtime.

Council decided not to switch to the OPP.

It instead asked the city police board to review the cost comparison and consider conducting a service review to find efficiencies, using the OPP costing as a benchmark.

The board approved the request at a special meeting in December.

In other Owen Sound Police Service news, Garth Pierce has been acclaimed to another one-year term as chairman of the board. He has been on the board for about 12 years and has served about seven terms as chair.

Also, Owen Sound lawyer Jill Sampson has joined the board as a provincial appointee.

Pierce said the board is at full complement again.

Sampson has been a member of the Law Society of Ontario since 2004 and moved to the area after obtaining her law degree from the University of Windsor.