Budget season is hardly the most wonderful time of the year for Sault ratepayers, but city councillors got a little pre-holiday joyful news tonight from Police Chief Hugh Stevenson.
Chief Stevenson, who just last month told council he needed an 8.19 per cent spending increase – $3.1 million over last year – announced he was cutting his request by 1.4 per cent.
"Good news!" Stevenson proclaimed.
"After our [police services] board meeting today, we went from 8.19, which was presented to council, to 6.79.
"The reason that occurred is we had four funding sources that were not available to us in August, when the original budget was submitted.
"And as a result of that, in three months, we firmed up these four funding sources.
"One of them is the two major school boards are funding an officer in a high school at $135,000.
"We also had a payment to another police service for some of our canine unit equipment at $200,000.
"We also have a bail compliance grant for $100,000 and we received a one-time grant of $85,000 from the attorney general for disclosure protocols," the chief said.
Most years, the police service's needs are passed by city council without much opposition.
Police boards must provide their municipalities with operating and capital estimates for the cost of providing "adequate and effective" policing.
After reviewing the estimates, municipal councils then establish an overall budget for their police boards, but they’re not obligated to rubber-stamp the police-submitted estimates.
If a police board isn’t satisfied with a council-set budget:
- the police board and the municipality may jointly apply to the chair of the province's Arbitration and Adjudication Commission to appoint a conciliation officer to try to resolve the matter; or
- the police board may give the municipality written notice referring the matter to arbitration
In the past, few if any municipalities have succeeded in challenging police board budgets.
City council's budget deliberations are scheduled for Dec. 9 and 10.
Tax policy, rate options and other recommendations will be presented to council in March/April of next year.