City councilors are calling for a police budget of just over $49 million.
Councilors, meeting as the estimates committee on Jan. 22, voted 7-2 in favor of motion requesting the Brantford Police Services Board set a 2024 budget of $49.33 million. The figure represents a 10.49 per cent increase in spending over 2023 and was brought to councilors for debate by Mayor Kevin Davis.
Councilors Michael Sullivan, John Sless, Dan McCreary, Rose Sicoli, Gino Caputo and Greg Martin voted in favor of the request. Those voting against included Councilors Richard Carpenter and Mandy Samwell. Councilors Linda Hunt and Brian Van Tilborg were not at the meeting during the vote.
“When police services board set a budget, my experience has been that the impact on the taxpayer has not been a high priority,” Davis said. “The high priority is what the board thinks it needs, what senior staff think is needed to operate the police service
“We at this level (city council) have to consider the budget in a broader context that includes other departments, other agencies, other programs and services because the ability of taxpayer to pay property taxes is not unlimited.”
Taxpayers are facing unbelievable pressures on family budgets primarily due to inflation and can’t afford property tax increases of 10, 12 and
Using a spread sheet analysis, Davis told advisors the police budget has increased by more than $17.1 million since 2019. That represents a 52 per cent increase when inflation from 2019 to 2023 was 17 per cent.
In 2019, Davis said .21 cents of every dollar collected by the city in property taxes went to pay for policing. This figure has increase to .25 cents of every dollar.
Moreover, Davis said Brantford spends the second highest amount of money for policing for cities with a population greater than 100,000. Property taxpayers pay about $402 per person for policing in Brantford.
By way of comparison, figures provided by Davis show Guelph pays $326 per person while Barrie spends $384 and Greater Sudbury spends $380.
“Police have done a great job for us. The crime rate has dropped,” Davis said.
Looking at the proposed police budget increase for 2024 and the past increases, Davis said the time has come when the city has to balance the needs of policing with the needs of other departments and the property taxpayer’s ability to pay.
“I’m really concerned that if we continue to allow policing budgets to increase at frankly unsustainable level. It will make it difficult to improve other services and programs,” Davis said.
Coun. John Sless supported Davis and said he gets concerned about high increases like that of the police service coming in repeatedly when there are other city services that need attention including roads.
There are a lot of roads that need fixing and the city’s public works department is given a budget and told to make it work based on the taxpayer’s ability to pay.
The request, if approved and supported by the police board, would reduce the original 2024 police budget of more than $50 million by about $1 million.
As part of its 2024 budget, the police service is looking to hire six full-time employees for its records department, five full-time special constables to work in the courts, two fourth class constables, one full-time communications supervisor, an officer to work in local schools and a special constable to work in the police forensics department.
Speaking to councilors at the Jan. 22 meeting, Police Chief Rob Davis said adding staff to the records department and the special constables for the courts are the top two priorities largely due to the volume of work.
The estimates committee will reconvene Jan. 24 to continue with the city’s budget deliberations. The police budget discussion can be seen on the city’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOlm45s2O8.
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