Niagara eyes shared cop services with Hamilton
Investigating ways to share service opportunities with other police services such as Hamilton could result in cost savings for the local police service, according to a member of the Niagara Regional Police services board.
“I think we owe it to the public to do better with the resources that we have,” said board member David Barrick, a Port Colborne regional councillor.
“We don’t each need a helicopter or an armoured vehicle,” Barrick said earlier. “Each one could specialize in a specific area and we could share those services.”
Several members of the Niagara board are expected to attend the next Hamilton police board meeting Friday. A letter board chairman Bob Gale sent to Lloyd Ferguson, chairman of the Hamilton police board, in late July suggesting sharing service arrangements is expected to be discussed.
“Many police organizations are looking at shared service arrangements to address gaps and inefficiencies by bringing together resources, functions, processes and skills from one police service to create economies of scale, pool skill sets and increase standardization,” Gale wrote.
“Our board believes that the sharing of services, where appropriate, will lead to efficiencies and is an effective route to not only cost reduction but sustaining and enhancing both our local police services.”
Gale told Postmedia that approaching the neighbouring municipality is a logical step.
“Hamilton police is looking at building a $20- or $24-million forensic building. We just built a $65-million police building that has forensics. Why don’t we ask them if they want to share some of those things?
“We have the most boats around. Why aren’t we covering the Hamilton Harbour bay and why don’t we use their bomb squad?”
While the police service will look at possibilities of sharing services if directed by the board, Chief Jeff McGuire said the idea “isn’t as simple as it might sound.”
“The logistics are really rather difficult,” he said.
He said sharing a forensics lab, for example, may not be a feasible option for Hamilton.
“Our forensics unit is an hour and 10 minutes away from some parts of Hamilton.”
Also, Hamilton police service has an armoured rescue vehicle but McGuire doubts the service would loan out the vehicle.
“I can’t believe the board would send their only truck to Fort Erie, for instance, and leave themselves vulnerable.”
The NRP is hoping to add its own tactical rescue vehicle to its fleet and have included a proposal for a $300,000 vehicle in the draft 2017 capital budget, along with a $500,000 rescue boat.
Those two reports are expected to be discussed at the board’s Sept. 8 finance committee meeting.
“We want to analyze it to see if we really do need these things, to see what our options are,” Gale said.
The police board in July also voted unanimously on a motion by Barrick for the NRP to work with regional staff to investigate ways to further integrate business support services and functions such as finance and human resources.
Looking at ways of sharing additional services with Niagara Region, Gale added, makes financial sense.
“That’s not to suggest we’re going to be laying off people or anything like that. It’s just analyzing some of the things we use their staff for because, in the end, they’re paying for it any way.”
McGuire said the police service already works closely with the Region and also has a number of agreements in place with other law enforcement agencies.
The NRP, for example, provides dive services for the Waterloo Regional Police because the agency does not have its own unit.
The police service is also involved in a number of joint forces operations across the province including the anti-terrorism unit.