Police seek budget hike

Providing London with a safe and secure community is still the number- one goal of the London Police Service.

London Police proposed a 3.6 per cent budget increase, resulting in a $91,231,377 proposed budget even though the city wants to achieve a zero per cent budget increase for 2013.

"(This money) is what we need to provide the service level as they are currently in the City of London," said Police Chief Brad Duncan. Police are adamant about holding the line on the services they've provided this year.

A large portion of the budget was based on civilian oversight. However, Judy Bryant, councilor of Ward 13, doesn't fully agree that it provides a general overview of the city's needs.

"I think it's a good grounding piece, but it doesn't cover everyone because some people would be too shy to come (to the budget meetings), for one thing, or else they wouldn't speak up, or they might be people who are available at certain times" and are unable to make the meetings.

London Police remain confident that they can cater to Londoners' needs. "I think we're at a point now where we've advocated for a number of years to be here, and we're finally at a point where we're actually maintaining the service level that our community needs," said Duncan.

However, the budget does present a significant amount of risk. "What you see at 3.6 per cent is really trivial to the costs associated with salaries and benefits," Duncan said. There is risk going forward because costs in areas such as fuel and utilities "where we should have built in increases, we did not," stressed Duncan.

If the budget doesn't get approved, Byrant said, "we would ... not be able to cut, clearly, the officers on the street, it would be the programs that we have. And we have some very good programs like Project L.E.A.R.N. ... crossing guards." She said these are the things that aren't mandatory but "it brings our overall police costs down having programs like that."

London is one of three police services in Ontario that still includes crossing guards in the police budget, but, Duncan said, "In reality, crossing guards are not really a core police function, so that might be something to be looked at going forward."

This year, London Police added 15 frontline staff — officers on patrol — to the team. "There was a recommendation for a further 15," said Duncan, "but we have been working very, very hard with our community partners, especially in the area of dealing with those with mental issues within our community. Very soon we will have mobile crisis workers on the street. I think that's going to have an impact on the time spent by our officers. If that's the case going forward ... that may translate into not needing as many resources on the front line."

The next budget meeting will be held on November 1 where the current proposal will either get the okay or the boot.