Police service draft budget not `usual business'
Ottawa force seeks $13.2-million increase after year of major change, challenges
Ottawa police have tabled a draft 2021 budget that would see the net operating budget increase by $13.2 million next year. That means a $332.5-million net operating budget in 2021 that would see the average homeowner's property tax bill pay $19 more to police, bringing the total to $644.
The draft budget comes at the tail end of a year of major change and challenges for the police service and as calls to defund or reform the institution of policing have grown louder both in Ottawa and elsewhere.
On Wednesday morning, Chief Peter Sloly, recognizing those calls for greater accountability from the police service, said it was “not a business-as-usual” budget. He has maintained that the kind of police reform needed to better align with community demands is one that cannot be achieved by shifting money from the organization and off-loading responsibilities elsewhere. That kind of generational change to redefine how police carry out their duties takes dollars and time, he has said.
“This is a business-as-different-and-better budget,” he said.
The draft budget, revealed in a special meeting of the police board, includes hiring 30 new officers, expanding neighbourhood policing teams to the city's suburban and rural areas, increasing staffing to units that investigate violence against women and a $1.5-million investment into the creation of a new mental health response led by the community.
That response strategy has yet to be created and police don't actually know exactly where or how they will spend the money, but they have committed to funding the development of a strategy.
Police have previously said they envision a strategy that will focus on incorporating mental health professionals into the force's front-line response to increase its mental health unit's capacity. The strategy would also increase response options for service calls and would include mental health professionals in the 911 dispatch centre to help triage calls as they come in. But all of it remains for the community to take the lead. The service and board have promised to hold extensive public consultations before committing to a plan. The service also envisioned that some of the money would go toward more de-escalation training for officers.
“We may find that the community doesn't need or want us to have that capability and that those resources could be deployed to some other more effective needs,” Sloly said. “We've conceived of changes but we haven't made them concrete. What we are making concrete is we're telling the board and we're telling the public we're putting $1.5 million on the table to be dedicated to whatever comes out of that joint, co-produced strategy.”
Police hope to fund that, in part, thanks to a $1-million grant from the provincial government to support the expansion of what the province calls mobile crisis intervention teams — joint police-mental health practitioner teams that see police respond to calls with mental health workers.
“If not a single dollar comes from the province or the feds, we're committed to that $1.5 million. We will find those resources,” Sloly said.
Police also presented this draft budget into “a world gripped with COVID, the impacts locally and globally of the George Floyd effect, Black Lives Matters, our own local challenges in regards to the outcome of the (Const. Daniel) Montsion trial and years, if not decades, of deliberations across civil society and the local city and our members (of ) what this organization should look like,” Sloly said.
Police expect to use the 2021 budget to expand its neighbourhood-policing model into the city's suburban and rural areas. To date, police have launched six teams in the city's urban areas. Next year's draft budget includes 20 new permanent officers to deploy to new teams and five community police officers.
In addition, five new investigators are expected to be added to the service's sexual assault and child abuse unit and to the partner assault unit. Two of those budgeted positions will be coordinators who will work with local gender-based violence community groups and in the field of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Police will also roll out additional mandatory training for officers in the areas of anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism.
About 81 per cent of the budget, $306.6-million of a $376.4-million gross operating budget, will go toward officer and civilian employee salaries.
Police continue to forecast hiring 30 new officers each year in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Public delegations on the proposed budget are scheduled for both Nov. 9 and Nov. 23. The budget is expected to go to city council for approval on Dec. 9.