MA- Police want to work with Insurance companies to help pay for services.

Promoting an auto insurance surcharge as the solution, police officials told lawmakers yesterday that the police training system is nearing a crisis stage across Massachusetts, with specialty training halted and insufficient opportunities available to 17,000 municipal officers.

Legislation pushed by Mark Leahy, president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, and Wayne Sampson, executive director of the association, would produce training funds with a surcharge on auto insurance policies that the officials said would add between $2 and $2.50 per year to policies.

Governor Deval Patrick included the auto insurance surcharge in his budget proposal for fiscal 2012 filed in January, calling it a “modest assessment’’ similar to the property insurance surcharge used to fund firefighter training.

Neither the House nor the Senate adopted the governor’s proposal in their budget proposals.

But while the House offered no alternative funding mechanism, the Senate on Wednesday proposed tacking a $5 fee onto all moving violation traffic tickets.

As a tradeoff for taxpayers, the Senate has also proposed making the $25 fee for challenging a traffic violation refundable if the ticket is dismissed.

Sampson said the auto insurance surcharge would generate about $8 million, funds that would be split between municipal police and the State Police. He said areas that have been casualties of the lack of funds include training in interrogation, homicide, rape, and detective work.

Doesn't anyone see a conflict of interest here? The insurance companies already provide the police with Lidar guns. When you get cited for a moving violation your insurance rates increase and the Town or State recieve the money from your fine. Why don't the insurance companies openly pay for all police services and raise surcharges? We'd have a National Insurance Police force openly funded and not hiding behind Legislation. It doesn't get anymore brazen than the police working with insurance companies and asking Americans not to see the conflict of interest.

Link for insurance companies providing Lidar guns to police:
http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?79163-LIDAR-Jammer-question

Link:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/05/20/police_officials_push_insurance_surcharge_to_fund_training_programs/