City council mulls what happens if it rejects Hamilton police's $196M budget

Hamilton city council mulled over if it could reject Hamilton police's request for a $12 million increase to the budget and what happens if they do reject it.

Hamilton police are asking for a combined operating and capital budget of $195,851,008.

Lisa Shields, a city solicitor, and Mike Zegarac, the city's head of finance, answered questions from councillors during a general issues committee meeting on Tuesday morning.

Ward 6 Coun. Tom Jackson asked if city council "literally will have no ability to possibly challenge" the budget increase given what he described as the Doug Ford government's "very strong pro-police positioning." 

Shields said city council can choose to reject the budget, which would lead the police services board to submit a new budget to council or appeal the city's decision to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC).

Ward 1 Coun. Maureen Wilson said while city council can't "cherry pick" at various line items in the budget, there's "an opportunity" for council to work with the police board to set a "reasonable and sustainable threshold of spend."

Wilson asked if the city has ever rejected the police service's budget. 

Shields said based on her research, the city has never rejected the police service's budget.

The OCPC also told CBC Hamilton that in the past 20 years, Hamilton police haven't filed an appeal.

According to Zegarac, no municipality has been successful in those appeals.

He said some municipalities have argued they don't have the means to pay for the police budget, but haven't been successful because they can levy taxes.

OCPC didn't confirm if all municipalities that have appealed police budgets have been unsuccessful.

Ward 2 Coun. Cameron Kroetsch said if the city does reject the budget and the police board appeals the decision, maybe city council can use an alternate argument instead of arguing it doesn't have the means to pay for the new budget.

"I want to understand what can we be arguing ... without proactively thinking that through, we're putting ourselves in a weird spot," he said.

The police service will present its budget to city council on Wednesday.