The North Bay Police Services Board has passed the 2018 operating budget and it calls for a 3.63% increase, the board announced at the monthly meeting earlier this week at Police Headquarters.
That’s a significant drop from a previous estimate of about 8%.
Police Chief Shawn Devine says they were able to reduce the number by cutting overtime by $200,000, making cuts to the WSIB surcharge along with the impact of hiring new recruits, to name a few.
“We came forward, through dispatching work we do with the North Bay Fire Department, and as a result, we were able to reduce the budget request to the 3.63%,” he says.
Devine reminds the public that the 8% figure mentioned at a city budget meeting last month was never passed by the board and was just an estimate of where they were in the process.
“At that November meeting it was never voted on by the Police Services Board but the city, doing their budgeting, wanted to know what we were looking at. There was a number presented, but again that was not a number that was ratified by the Police Services Board,” said Devine.
