Cop costs on way way up

Regulatory requirements, a return to pension premiums, and higher overall costs will likely mean a double-digit increase in the North Bay Police Services 2004 budget, police board chairman William Ferguson said Thursday.

Increases in police budget items such as fuel, information technology and wages are among the factors which will make it “very difficult” for the board to “hold the line on costs,” Ferguson told reporters following the monthly board meeting.

“We’re just putting the word out there now that costs are increasing and we’re doing everything we can to hold the line,” Ferguson said, “but realistically with just the increase from inflation and all the different factors which affect the board we can expect increases next year.”


Very little room for cuts

Ninety per cent of the service’s budget is made up of labour and benefits costs, Ferguson said.

“So when you take that 10 per cent that ‘s funding things like our infrastructure here, our plants, our operating costs, our cruisers, there’s not a lot of room left to cut, and we can’t contain fuel costs, we can’t contain insurance cost, and we can’t contain the cost of information technology because the requirements for reporting and using those systems for doing our work are just continuing to increase every year,” Ferguson said.

Despite the gloomy outlook Ferguson doesn’t believe the double-digit increase will have a ‘2’ or higher number in front of it.

“We just have to be realistic when we look our costs.”


Pension holiday over

The board will also have to resume contributions to the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System after a payment holiday, Ferguson said, “and the premiums are going up as well.”

Ferguson said the previous police board did not put aside OMERS payments during the holiday, “we simply took them off the budget line.”

Another thing hamstringing the board is Ontario law.

“A lot of the things we do here are mandated by the Police Service Act, by the adequacy and effectiveness regulations that are part of that act, and we can’t simply stop doing these things so the reality is we don’t have a lot of flexibility on how we can cut on that front,” Ferguson said.


Best budget we can

Money is so tight, Ferguson said, the service isn’t able to take advantage of provincial funding which provides half the cost of certain policing programs.

“We don’t have the money to match those fifty-cent dollars,” Ferguson said.

“And those programs are only for new hires and we can’t transfer any existing positions into that kind of arrangement.”

All the board can really do at this point, Ferguson said, “is present the best budget we can, with the fairest look at things.”


Provincial help needed

If there are areas where savings can be found, Ferguson said, “we’ll do what we have to.”

“But we have to keep our staffing levels in line with what the Police Act requires us to do, and of course we’re in collective agreements as well so staff reductions are not an easy thing for us to do,” Ferguson said.

He is looking to the province, though, for help.

“The last administration, by and large, has been very good for the policing community in Ontario and we hope this new administration will come along with additional funding for policing services,” Ferguson said.

New Nipissing MPP Monique Smith could not be reached for comment despite numerous attempts to contact her.