West Grey Police Service and Owen Sound Police Service are no longer looking to join forces.
At Wednesday's council meeting, members heard from Police Chief Robert Martin that evaluations of the feasibility of one joint force were called off by the local police association, however the news was first shared at Owen Sound council earlier in the week.
Martin said without the association's support, things would stay status quo.
"There has been some challenges from the police association, it was mentioned in their council from the West Grey side not supporting it, which does cause us a significant challenge moving forward if we do not have the labour association's support," he told council. "My recommendation is to continue what we've been doing since 2019, the West Grey Police and Owen Sound Police have had very productive talks about cost savings and the way we do business."
Six years ago when the Community Safety and Policing Act was introduced, small and mid-size forces began exploring cost-saving measures to deal with some of the financial burdens of the new legislation.
Councillors asked if other services had been approached and Martin said forces still have regular talks to explore cost-saving opportunities, and that will continue when a new chief takes over at the end of the month.
"Saugeen Shores, Hanover, Owen Sound, ourselves, the First Nations community, we're in a working group, we meet once a month, we're all doing shared resourcing agreements," he said. "We have reached some good conclusions, through our training we've saved some money...it reduces the burden on the ratepayers for all five municipal services. We're already having those discussions and they will be continuing into the very near future."
Deputy Police Chief Jeremy White was announced as Martin's successor in May.