Police told to 'squeeze the lemon' and trim 2020 budget draft

The Waterloo Regional Police Services Board says the service needs to trim down its draft 2020 budget.

In its current version, the draft budget would ask the average property taxpayer to pay $669 a year for policing, an increase of $33.70 over 2019.

The police budget has already been whittled once this budget cycle. The first version of the budget, presented in October, had asked households for an average increase of $672 a year.   

"The lemon has been squeezed — we'll squeeze it even tighter," said police chief Bryan Larkin.

The first round of savings is in part attributed to:

• A change in the amount of money police are expected to contribute to a new voice radio system.
• The replacement of one officer position with a civilian position.  

Police are also expecting an increase of $394,000 from provincial grant funding.

Between 2018 and 2019, the budget increased by approximately $19 a household.

Budget drivers

Karen Redman, who is both regional chair and chair of the police services board, said the 2020 budget is "a perfect storm" of costs that have popped up at the same time.

The police voice radio system is old and failing, Redman said. Replacing it will cost the service around $688,000, she said in an earlier email.

The transition to a long-term disability system costs about $3 million. Another $2.6 million has been allocated to meet contractual agreements for civilian staff, she said.

Redman said some of the 2020 costs will save the service money over time.

For example, she said officers are currently travelling two to a cruiser as a safety precaution, because the radio system is so unreliable.

"The voice radio procurement will, in the long term, create savings because we won't have two officers in cruisers," Redman said.

The police service has been told to trim costs, but has not been given a certain target to hit.  

"We're assuming that they will continue to do their due diligence and bring that bottom line down further through redeployment, through putting off purchases, looking at some kind of a withdrawal from their reserves," said Redman.

The police budget will go before regional council on Dec. 11.