‘Election budget’ draft met with criticism

Draft plan constrained by council’s limit on spending hikes, El-Chantiry says

The Ottawa Police Service has cobbled together a 2018 draft budget that puts off contributions to capital reserves and information technology upgrades to satisfy financial constraints demanded by city council.

“Let city council understand, we are plugging holes here,” said Eli El-Chantiry, the chair of the police services board, after seeing the 2018 estimates Monday.

The police board’s finance and audit committee received an early look at the financial forecasts before management tables the draft budget in November.

El-Chantiry called it an “election budget,” but the police force, like all city departments, has been under tight tax controls for years under Mayor Jim Watson’s administration.

El-Chantiry said the police budget shouldn’t be an election issue, but there’s no avoiding it.

The next municipal election is in October 2018. The 2018 city budget process, which will play out over the next three months, will be the last for this term of council.

The police force continues to be handcuffed by council’s direction to cap annual tax increases at two per cent. The police force would be more comfortable tabling a budget with a 4.3 per cent increase in 2018, adding $14.4 million to its forecast, but managers know that won’t fly at council.

To hit that two per cent target in 2018 and keep the budget increase to $8.5 million, the force proposes to hold off on capital reserve contributions and contributions to information technology (IT).

Ottawa police project spending $329.9 million in 2018.

“The risk is in the outer years. We’ve developed an aggressive repayment plan for a number of years to ensure our plans around facilities and our IT projects don’t get delayed,” Ottawa police Chief Charles Bordeleau said. “We would have to stick to that schedule of repayment of the contributions to deal with a one-year deferral.”

The force also thinks it can find $600,000 of efficiencies in 2018 and collect an extra $200,000 in revenue.

Simply maintaining the current level of service will cost an extra $9.7 million, considering rising salaries and workplace injury insurance expenses.

Add to that the force’s continued growth of 25 new officers annually, costing $2.6 million in 2018.

There will be even more officers added to the force if management convinces the police board and council to OK a long-term hiring plan, which calls for the hiring of an additional 30 officers a year in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The force predicts it will need to increase the police tax by 4.4 per cent, 4.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively, in those years.

“Because of the complexities of the work and emerging pressures that policing is having, we will need to add 30 more members for outlying three years,” Bordeleau said.

“We’re seeing the impact of policing on our members from a mental health perspective.”

The force is also seeing more Workplace Safety Insurance Board and long-term disability claims, driving staff shortages and affecting officers who are doing more work, the chief said.

“We want to make sure that we have enough officers out there to do the work that’s being asked upon them, whether it’s traffic safety, whether it’s guns and gangs, whether it’s violence against women,” Bordeleau said. “There are a number of pressures out there and demands that the community wants from our members.”

El-Chantiry said the police force needs to do a better job of explaining to the public why the overtime costs are high when it’s hiring more officers each year.

Board vice-chair Jim Durrell said, “I have so little confidence in this budget,” and he expressed sympathy for police managers trying to divvy up money across the force.

Asked if council should consider dropping the two per cent budget restriction for the police force, ElChantiry said there was virtually no chance of that happening.

“I think that’s a discussion that should be taken on the council table, but if I say to you that is going to happen in an election year, I’ll be lying to you,” El-Chantiry said. “I don’t want to lie to you, so it’s not going to happen.”