North Bay Police Chief Shawn Devine compares a police budget to that of a home owner.
“When you are setting a budget that is close to 18 or 19 million dollars this is what we think we are going to spend on it and just like your home budget sometimes your gas or your water bill is more expensive than other areas so you try to find savings in other areas but the reality is some costs are unavoidable,” said Devine.
When you are a police service overtime savings can be very difficult to manage.
“Providing 24 hour emergency response is something we cannot control and we have to respond to it and I think the board understands that, however, in the end, there still have to be explanations where the costs go. So this morning when I talked about the six-month period of our budget I was trying to explain some of the areas that are associated with that,” said Devine.
“The first 48 hours in an investigation that is of a serious nature, whether that be an attempted murder or a violence case or a sexual assault, gathering the information as quickly as possible within that 48 hours is paramount to the investigations.”
The Police Chief updated the Police Board on the current police operating budget which he says he is comfortable and confident that budget targets are being met.
Devine says other budget concerns come from a pair of internal police services cases that involve legal costs.
“Part of the budget is setting the legal funds, how much in a year are we going to spend on legal so like any budget it’s an estimation what you are going to spend on it so we have had a lot of internal disciplinary actions that are going on,” stated Devine.
“We also went to arbitration this year and worked with the Association to change the language within the collective agreement with regards to our promotional system so like any kind of negotiations where you involve arbitrators or you involve lawyers there is a cost associated, so that has had an impact on the board’s budget.”
The six-month update comes after the police service grappled with City Council last year to increase their budget.
The Police had recommended a 3.9% budget increase which was rejected by City Council in December as they asked the Service to undertake an operating budget of $17,986,598.00 which translates into a 3.6% budget increase.
City Council approved the 3.6% increase by a vote of 7 to 3 in favour.
