Police pay hike awarded
By 2019, under the terms of a provincially arbitrated contract between Niagara Regional Police and the local police union, a new cadre of Niagara police officers will end up on the rolls of the annual Sunshine List.
The new agreement, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2016, and released by the police services board Tuesday afternoon, gives uniformed officers pay raises for the next four years.
By 2019, a first-class constable — the highest rank of constable in the service — will earn $100,311 a year. That will put the base salary on the Sunshine List, the annual list of government employees who earn $100,000 or more.
Police services board chair and Niagara Falls regional councillor Bob Gale said he is “content” with the contract, but concerned about the community’s ability to pay for policing in the long term.
“I am not raising alarm bells for anyone here, and I’m not being critical of police officers,” Gale said Wednesday. “But I am concerned about what our children are inheriting in 10 or 12 years. I am worried we could have milliondollar cops out there.”
The first retroactive raise for 2016 totals 2.3 per cent with another two per cent this year. In 2018, police pay goes up another 1.9 per cent and then up again 1.95 per cent in 2019.
Niagara Region Police Association president Cliff Priest said the arbitrator’s decision is fair and comparable to settlements reached by other Ontario police services.
Priest said George Adams, the provincial arbitrator, didn’t give the police union everything it wanted.
Priest pointed out the pay increases for 2016 and 2017 are spilt into two each year. It will also take NRP constables nearly six years instead of five to reach the level of first-class constable.
“That reduces the overall payout and I think they did that to assist the board with their budgets,” he said.
Priest rejected Gale’s belief that police budgets are becoming unaffordable, calling the claim of “million-dollar cops” an exercise in “political fear-mongering.”
“When you look at the police budget as a percentage of the entire regional budget, it hasn’t really changed,” he said. “You have to deal in reality and take a look at that.”
Priest said the association understands the cost of government services grows while private sector earnings do not increase at the same rate, but said cutting policing is not a solution.
“I’m a taxpayer and I want to have quality, professional police services in my community,” he said. “There are other areas of government that cost tax dollars. We have two levels of government in Niagara, which seems unnecessary. If you look at the police board, it costs $800,000 that isn’t going to real police work.”
The police services board, which crafted a 2016 budget with a zero per cent increase, ended the year with a deficit.
According to a February board financial report, the NRP spent 121 per cent of its 2016 budget. In the fall, in a bid to reduce costs, the service implemented a spending freeze, limiting expenses to those items that were “operationally essential.”
That report and a March report from the Niagara Region corporate services committee indicate the board considered a plan to use reserve funds to pay for the service’s deficit. However, in anticipation of possible contract settlement payouts, the board held onto more than $2 million of that reserve money.
The board’s $137.3-million 2017 budget — an increase of 2.15 per cent over 2016 — puts $2.8 million into the reserve funds.
Gale said the board will now have to determine the actual costs of the contract and how it will spend the money it held back in 2016.
Last week, Priest said the board’s zero per cent budget in 2016 was a politically motivated mistake which did not account for the likelihood of rising salaries nor the unpredictable costs of major police investigations.
However, Gale said he would do the 2016 zero per cent budget “again in a heartbeat.”
He said when the board crafted the 2016 budget, the board assumed it could get zero per cent salary increases in contract negotiations. Talks with the union failed to produce a deal, and the contract was sent to a provincial arbitrator.
“At the time (of the 2016 budget) we had reserve funds and we decided we could use those funds,” Gale said. “We all know reserve funds are there for when things go bad, when you have a major incident. At the same time, people don’t want their tax dollars, their money, sitting in a bank account.”
Gale said while the board has to determine the precise financial impact of the settlement, he believes the service will not end 2017 in a deficit position.
It is in 2018, when officer salaries go up by 1.9 per cent, that “we’re going to have to suck it up a bit,” he said.
How the service manages its finances that year will be determined by the board and police chief, Gale said.
Gale said the arbitration process in Ontario is “broken” and police boards across the province are frustrated by the system’s lack of flexibility.
“What I learned through this process is that, no matter what you say, arbitrated contracts are set entirely against the size of the service,” said Gale, referring to salary increases being set against pay raises at other like-sized services.
Gale said the arbitration system has to change, but it “will take a very strong premier to deal with it.”