Ninety more officers needed, says police union

Police association says 47 additional staff the chief is asking for isn’t enough

The region needs an extra 90 police officers, says the president of the local police union.

Mark Egers of the Waterloo Regional Police Association said the 47 additional officers Police Chief Bryan Larkin asked the police services board for this week is not enough.

“We are at a critical mass right now,” he said. “We need more officers on the road.”

Egers said the service needs to hire 80 to 90 officers to meet daily demands.

Larkin asked for more officers during preliminary budget discussions this week. The proposed budget for 2019 is $171.5 million, an increase of 6.4 per cent from last year. The related tax hike would amount to an extra $27 per household.

At this week’s police board meeting, the chief said pressures on the local service include a surge in local crime over the past three years. Of the 12 large police services in Ontario, the overall crime rate in the region was the fourth highest in 2017, according to Statistics Canada

The region’s violent crime rate was the second highest of the 12 police services. Other crimes on the rise included sexual assault, homicide and robbery.

“I would argue that one of the main reasons for the increase in crime is a lack of police presence,” Egers wrote in an article published in a police union magazine distributed to officers.

Additional officers haven’t been hired since 2013 and it shows, Egers said.

Officers are racking up overtime because they are being asked to fill in for vacancies.

“The overtime numbers are through the roof,” Egers said.

The money spent on overtime is $476,000 overbudget due to staffing shortages, says a report by finance director Kirsten Hand that was presented to police board members this week.

“When a staff sergeant looks at his roster and he’s three officers short, he’ll send an email blast saying he needs three people,” Egers said. “Platoons are short everyday.”

Each day there are 199 officers and civilians who are on sick leave or working partial days. That amounts to 17 per cent of the workforce not working at full capacity.

Larkin has said there are significant consequences for the officers who are responding to calls each day.

Egers said more officers are off work because of chronic stress disorder, including PTSD. “It’s a very high-stress job,” he said.

Egers acknowledges that officers are compensated for their work, but “we don’t get paid to see dismembered bodies. We are human beings too.”

He said he would like to see a long-term hiring maintenance plan in which officers are hired more often so staff sergeants aren’t left scrambling to fill absences.

“We talk about minimum staffing and that seems to be the bar we go after,” he said. “I want to see adequate staffing.”

Officers working overtime get overworked, Egers said.

“They are stressed out and if they do that too long, they go off on stress leave.”

Egers would also like to see an improved wellness program with preventive plans that offer officers help before they go on sick leave. That would include a psychologist on staff, he said.