AVERAGE HOMEOWNER WILL PAY $603 FOR OTTAWA POLICE SERVICE

Salaries for officers, civilian staff make up the bulk of spending in 2018 draft budget

City council and the Ottawa police board have tabled the force’s 2018 draft budget, which would see the average homeowner pay $603 to the Ottawa Police Service.

The draft budget sees police operating on a gross budget of $330 million, with 82 per cent of that — $271.4 million — going toward paying officers and civilian staff. The budget continues a trend of having the majority of the spending allotted to police force salaries.

The average homeowner’s police property tax will increase by $12 in 2018, with police getting $8.5 million more than in 2017.

The budget, like those in recent years, has come in at a tax rate increase of two per cent, which was set by city council — a task that both police board chair Coun. Eli El-Chantiry and Chief Charles Bordeleau have said was difficult.

“We recognize the targeted police tax rate increase of two per cent was difficult to meet; however, the service came back with a plan that will allow the OPS to meet the policing needs of the city while making necessary investments in staff,” El-Chantiry said.

“It’s a challenge at two per cent, not only for our police service but other departments are seeing that it’s increasingly difficult to achieve,” Bordeleau said.

For the police, that included pushing some costs to the future, outright saying no to new initiatives and using more debt to finance projects.

What they’ve ended up with is a draft budget that maintains services, continues the final phase of a three-year hiring plan approved by the board and addresses base budget issues that’ve thrown the budget out of whack in years past, Bordeleau said.

The draft budget would add $2 million to the police overtime base, in the hopes the force can stop going into the red on that line item. By this year’s end, for instance, the service expects to overspend on overtime by $3.1 million.

Bordeleau attributed much of the increase in the last couple of years to the end of informal arrangements that saw officers take lieu time or forgo formally claiming overtime in exchange for other benefits.

Now, the force believes it’s seeing “real overtime costs” and says it has budgeted accordingly.

An additional $2 million will go toward paying for increases in long-term disability claims and legal settlements — two other items that created problems for the 2017 budget.

The 2018 budget will see the final 25 of 75 promised officers hired to the force. That hiring plan began in 2016 after a hiring freeze that started in 2011.

Though that plan will end in 2018, the force is now forecasting a 90-officer hiring plan to begin in 2019 and end in 2021.

Those forecasts, however, depend on tax increases in the range of 3.5 to 4.1 per cent.

Bordeleau is well aware that those numbers are significantly higher than what the force has been allowed to ask for in recent years, but said he will have discussions with the board on where the money to pay for these officers will come from when they prepare the 2019 budget.

Particularly troubling for the police chief is the city’s “cop-to-pop” ratio, the population served by each individual officer.

In 2011, when the force stopped hiring officers over and above attrition, each officer served 479 people. Based on 2016 numbers, the Ottawa force’s police strength is 10th of 13 major municipalities, with 521 people served by each officer. The forecasted 90-officer hiring plan would see the force try to maintain its current benchmark without slipping further and would help assist with emerging policing trends like marijuana legalization and battling the opioid crisis, Bordeleau said.

The draft budget also includes provisions for expanding the use of tasers by the force and preparing a response to future marijuana legislation.

Right now, the force has earmarked $500,000 for training and equipment purchases and has received no word on how much the province will kick in, or whether that money is coming at all.

Public feedback on the draft budget can be made at either the board’s Nov. 20 finance and audit committee meeting or at the full board meeting on Nov. 27.

The police budget will go to the board for approval on Nov. 27 and then to city council for final approval on Dec. 13.