Police board to discuss freezing of grants
Previously budgeted $500,000 from province not coming
Peterborough Police shouldn’t expect a previously budgeted provincial grant of $500,000, said police services board chairman Bob Hall, and a further $900,000 for court security may not be coming either now that the government has announced it will freeze funding while it conducts a line-by-line review of its expenses.
“The board is very concerned about this freezing of policing grants,” Hall said in an interview this week.
On Tuesday evening, the police services board will discuss the matter at their meeting.
Hall said the concern is that the provincial government hasn’t specifically contacted Peterborough Police to confirm the grants aren’t coming – they’ve made a generalized announcement to say policing grants are on hold until the review is over.
Meanwhile the police board has already drafted a proposed budget for 2019: they’ve alerted the city they intend to ask for $25.6 million, which is an increase of 2.8 per cent compared to this year.
If that’s not going to be enough, Hall said, the police services board has an obligation to alert the city immediately – but they can’t really do that until they know for sure how much money is coming, and when.
“It’s a very uncertain time,” Hall said.
When asked about it, Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith referred the question to the office of Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Michael Tibollo.
The minister’s spokesman Brett Weldman sent a written statement that says the government is reviewing its expenditures and that policing grants “are currently on hold”.
“We will continue to meet and work with our public safety partners to ensure they have the resources and tools necessary to do their jobs both safely and effectively,” the statement reads, but offers no further detail about how they will do that.
The police services board meets at city police headquarters on Water Street on Tuesday at 6 p.m.