Significant increase in North Bay 2023 police budget

The North Bay Police Service has approved the North Bay Police Service's 2023 budget which comes with a 10.78 per cent increase.  

During the open session of the March 21, 2023 meeting of the North Bay Police Services Board, the Board approved the North Bay Police Service’s 2023 budget of $24,941,514 which is up from $22,514,897 in 2022.  

Peter Chirico, North Bay's Mayor who sits on the Police Board, says the community spoke out about safety and they listened. 

A 2021 survey of residents of North Bay commissioned by the North Bay Police Service and conducted by Oracle poll Research found that 75 per cent of residents believed the North Bay Police Service “need more officers;” 83 per cent of residents supported the adoption of police-worn body cameras.

"Last year the community spoke out and they said they were concerned about safety within our city and our community," said Chirico after Tuesday's Police Board meeting.  

"Obviously those concerns were heard by the council of the day, the police services board heard those concerns and made the decision to hire some experienced officers plus an additional five new hires for 2023. Those were on budget from the previous council, they were certainly aware of them, so we knew there was going to be an impact on this year's budget." 

Police officials say the 2023 budget is largely driven by costs associated with the implementation of the 2023 Collective Agreement as well as the hiring of new sworn and civilian members to the North Bay Police Service.

This includes the hiring of nine additional officers, which was approved in 2022; the planned hiring of five additional officers throughout 2023; and the hiring of civilian members to facilitate the implementation of the North Bay Police Service’s digital evidence management system (DEMS), police body-worn camera program, and Next Generation 911 initiative.

"It is an investment in our community and the safety of our community," added Chirico.

"We have heard time and time again about the perception of safety and the additional officers will help complement our service and help allow the community to remain safe." 

Mike Daze, North Bay's deputy chief, says police budget hikes are typical as services continue to look to hire new officers.   

"When you look across the province we are seeing larger numbers than we have seen in the past and it is recognizing the demands that are coming from communities including here in North Bay about the need for more police officers and to be out and being proactive in the streets," said Daze. 

Daze, emphasized that the budget increase is not caused by members of the service being off on stress leave. 

"Like many other services we have officers that are off for a variety of reasons, it is not all PTSD related,' noted Daze.  

"Certainly, we do see across the province that we have officers now through presumptive legislation from 2016 are able to get the supports that they need. We recognize that it is important. We would rather have our officers who face traumatic events every day and deal with things the average person does not have to see and address, get the help that they need."

Daze says that does not account for the only reason officers are off. 

"We have members that are off because of injuries they have suffered for work off work," said Daze.  

"We have officers off on maternity and paternity leave so at any given time we have a number of officers off. That is not unique to North Bay, that happens right across all communities."

Daze says the complex efforts to get body-worn cameras operations come with a significant amount of support. 

"We hear from the community they want the new technology such as body-worn cameras and digital evidence management," said Daze.  

"Those platforms don't operate on their own. We need back-side support which is in civilian hiring to be able to do that. It is all in the ability to provide an effective responsive service. There is a cost to it and we recognize it as does every community across the province." 

The North Bay Police Service notes that about 8.5 per cent of the North Bay Police Service’s budget is offset by funding received by the federal and provincial governments for specific initiatives.