A proposal that was flagged Wednesday as a likely controversial component of Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget is already prompting cautious responses from many state legislators representing Butler County.

The idea — charging a $25 per-person fee to municipalities that rely on Pennsylvania State Police for police coverage — isn’t new. Neither is state legislators’ reaction to it, which on Wednesday amounted to leery curiosity about the proposal presented Tuesday by Wolf.

“I think we need to get into the details before I take a position on whether I support it,” said Rep. Tedd Nesbit, R-8th, whose district includes Center Township, where supervisors last year flirted with forming a regional police department with Butler City and Butler Township before ultimately backing off the idea.

Nesbit on Wednesday said the financial challenges faced by both the state and municipalities regarding police service need to be addressed on a broad scale.

“I think it’s an example of something we need to have a discussion (about) on a larger scale,” he said. “There’s been discussions on getting more troopers on the road, which I definitely think we need to do. It’s just how we’re going to pay for it.”

Getting more troopers on Pennsylvania’s payroll is something Sen. Don White, R-41st, acknowledged Wednesday is an ongoing issue for the commonwealth. But White said he’s not convinced that Wolf’s proposal is the right way forward. He pointed to a bill introduced in December by Sen. Kim Ward, R-39th, that would allow municipalities to negotiate contracts directly with state police for coverage.

White said he’s not supporting anyone’s idea until he hears more detail, and might oppose any moves until the state manages to enact significant pension reform — a long-running issue he called “the biggest elephant in the room.”

“I do know it’s a problem for the state police. I do know that our allotment of state police on the ground is diminished,” White said. “We’re expecting an awful lot of retirements this year, and we’re not providing enough cadet classes for new recruits. Manpower is an issue.”

A published report in 2015 found that nearly 25 percent of PSP’s 4,358 troopers were eligible for retirement that year, and that 40 percent would be eligible by 2019.

Meanwhile, both in Butler County and statewide state police continue to shoulder a significant workload when it comes to providing police coverage for municipalities. In Butler County 35 townships and boroughs — 61 percent of the county’s 57 municipalities — rely on state police for “full” coverage, according to information provided Wednesday by the Butler barracks of the state police. Ten receive part-time coverage from state police, meaning they are served part of the time by local police departments. Eleven municipalities don’t rely on state police at all, and are served by their own departments full-time, according to the barracks.

In 2016 state police said that 1,287 of the state’s 2,561 municipalities — slightly more than 50 percent — had no local police force at all, and relied entirely on state police for criminal, traffic and public safety services.

Eight counties — Cameron, Forest, Fulton, Juniata, Potter, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming — are fully covered by state police.

Wolf’s fee measure has at least one strong supporter in Rep. R. Lee James, R-64th, who said something needs to be done about the number of small municipalities that don’t have the ability to raise enough revenue to staff their own police departments.

“If it’s going to cost me (as a resident) $25 a year to do this, it’s a bargain and I should be willing to pay it,” James said Tuesday. “Everybody hates taxes, but that’s a good one. That’s a usage tax.”

But others, like Sen. Elder Vogel, R-47th, say any solution needs to benefit both state police and the municipalities that are struggling with the cost of fielding a local police presence.

“In some cases we should be encouraging municipalities that need cost-effective options for policing to look at merging with neighboring departments,” Vogel said Wednesday. “I hope we are able to find a solution that is beneficial for both state police and my municipalities.”

Rep. Jeff Pyle, R-60th, said that, for him, the detail is what’s lacking for Wolf’s plan. He has questions about how the per-person fee would be collected, and whether the measure would run afoul of state laws that govern the relationship between state police and municipalities.

“I wonder if this is a ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’ move,” Pyle said, adding that the House’s judiciary committee would be looking into the proposal in coming weeks.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, is among the staunch opponents of Wolf’s plan, saying that it amounts to an additional tax on residents who are already paying for state police service.

“This is just another way to take more money from taxpayers — a new tax for some municipalities,” Metcalfe said. “That’s just a wrong direction for Pennsylvania policy.”