Police budget revealed

Hamilton’s police Chief Glenn De Caire is asking for a record high police budget.

Earlier today, he asked the Police Services Board for $148-million dollars. That’s four million more than last year.

After more than an hour of deliberating, board members voted 5-1 tonight to put off approving the 148 million dollar budget for a month to see if they could trim it.

Chief De Caire: “The Hamilton police service makes recommendation that the board approve the 2015 operating budget at 2.95 percent.”

It’s less than what he asked for last year. But at 148 million dollars, Chief De Caire presented the largest budget ever requested for the Hamilton Police Service: “We are always concerned that we are able to establish the budget to provide adequate and effective policing services but the direction of the board was clear.”

Members of the Police Services Board are taking a month to mull it over, and see if the proposed budget can be trimmed.

Councillor Terry Whitehead: “The month buys us that time. You may see the exact same budget. You may not see changes. But it certainly gives us the comfort of going through that budget line by line.”

The budget is up four million from last year, and includes adding five constables to the Mobile Crisis rapid response team, which specializes in mental health calls. The team expected to see 250 calls this year. It ended up taking 624 calls in 11 months.

Chief De Caire: “And now what we are asking for is the ability to hire officers to make that program covered 7 days of the week. Right now, we cover 5 and we can only cover limited hours.”

Hamilton’s Local Health Integrated Network (LHIN) will spend nearly $500-thousand supporting that program.

The budget also asks for two trainers for conducted energy weapons, or tasers.

90 percent of the money will cover salaries and benefits.

The Police Services Board meets next on January 22nd to decide whether or not they will approve this budget. And then it goes to city council for final approval.