Police budget will go up 2.95 per cent - if the city says OK
Councillors will vote next week whether to accept a Hamilton police budget that is a 2.95-per cent increase over last year.
Glenn De Caire, chief of Hamilton Police Services, will present at city council chambers on Wednesday, making the case for what the service calls a maintenance budget.
The police services board unanimously passed the $158.5-million budget on Thursday. Lloyd Ferguson, the Ancaster councillor who was reelected chair for 2015, says it’s hard to know how his fellow elected officials will react.
“You never know, but I’ll do whatever I can to promote it,” he said.
“Nobody likes to see an increase, but it’s pretty much in line with other services where it’s 88 per cent salaries and wages.”
The budget, which De Caire touted as the lowest increase in 16 years, represents the anticipated operating costs for 2015. It’s $4.3 million higher than last year’s budget of $148.9 million.
Board members have spent the last month scrutinizing the budget, said Coun. Terry Whitehead of Ward 8, who is a member.
Whitehead said councillors will have some questions, but he feels good about the operating budget.
“I had some questions I needed to resolve,” he said. But he got answers that “I was very comfortable with.”
The board also discussed some big-ticket capital items on Thursday, worth a weighty $43,259,000 over the next 10 years.
Among those items:
- Police investigative services headquarters downtown: $16.5 million (2015)
- Expanding the marine facility: $4 million
- Another marine vessel (a rigid hull inflatable boat): $210,000
- Expanding the communications centre: $500,000 (2020)
- A new division 4 station: $19,674,000 (2020)
- New horse stables: $1 million (2021)
Whitehead questioned the need to spend that much on the investigate services headquarters. It’ll be a roughly 50,000-square foot facility, and the most pressing need is 12,000 square feet for forensics workers, he said. “We don’t need more boardrooms.”
The board voted Thursday to reaffirm its commitment to the project, which it first approved in 2010.
City councillors will have a harder time swallowing the capital projects, Whitehead said.
“It’s going to be a hard go.”
De Caire will present at a city council budget meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 28.