Police budget still ‘shell game,’ says Egli

Councillor argues revised plan will come up short — and leave the city on the hook

Ottawa police have found a way to make up a $2.4-million shortfall in their proposed 2019 budget, but one police board member is calling the revised draft budget a “shell game” that will most likely rely on a city bailout.

Police previously tabled a budget that came in at the three-per-cent cap dictated by Mayor Jim Watson, but only with a controversial $4.8-million request for funding from the city’s reserves. Watson quickly halved that request, with the police board also telling Chief Charles Bordeleau to come up with a list of budget options to reduce costs.

Bordeleau presented those options to the board’s finance and audit committee meeting on Wednesday. Under the preferred option — which would have no impact on front-line operations — the force would make more money on collision reporting centres, spend less on overtime, factor in “new information” on salary and fuel costs, and defer $400,000 in expenses to 2020.

But that plan is not without challenges, said Coun. Keith Egli.

“I’m disappointed with 2.0 of the budget,” he said. “My research shows the service has run a deficit in 2016, 2017 and likely 2018, and the city has had to bail out the police service in each of those years. The model we have here is still the city bailing out the police service but to a lesser degree.”

Egli said he’s not a fan of digging into the city’s tax stabilization fund to foot any of the police bill this early in the year.

“It’s supposed to be for emergencies. It’s not supposed to be to set up as a funding mechanism for a city department or organization and I still hold that concern.”

Egli said his concern was “bolstered” by the proposed plugs to fill the big holes.

“Two of the big plugs that you intend on using is using gapping and also money from the collision centres. Those are targets the service has not met or even come close to meeting over the last couple of years.”

Indeed, the force has consistently generated less revenue than anticipated from collision reporting centres, but according to the police service’s director general, Debra Frazer, it did meet its gapping target in 2018.

“Gapping ” is the budgeting of the gap between the force’s expected expenditures and what it actually pays out to employees. In any given year, a number of employees are not being paid on any given day for various reasons, such as sick leave or parental leave, for example. The new proposed budget is forecasting additional savings equivalent to five full-time employee salaries: $500,000.

“I think essentially what we have here is a bit of a shell game,” Egli said. Egli said he’s concerned that at the end of the year, when the force overspends, the city will once again be on the hook.

“I’m not on for that,” Egli said. “Your model is not sustainable.”

Egli is a member of the police board but is not a member of the committee and could not vote on the revised budget.

The committee made no recommendation on the second draft and has instead forwarded it to the full board.

The board will meet Monday when it’s scheduled to decide on the budget.