Budget deliberations are officially underway in the municipality with the budget for the Chatham-Kent Police Service taking centre stage during the first night of deliberations.
Councillors and municipal staff met virtually on Wednesday evening for night one of the 2021 budget deliberations.
During the meeting, Chatham-Kent Police Chief Gary Conn presented the police budget, which was ultimately approved.
Conn requested a $32.3 million budget for 2021, which represents a 1.16 per cent increase from 2020 and has a 0.23 per cent overall tax impact. Conn added that the 2021 police budget includes no additional staff and no cuts to services.
Eighty-nine per cent of the Chatham-Kent Police Service's operating expense goes towards salary and benefits, five per cent is fleet-related, four per cent goes towards administration and two per cent remains for operational expenses.
"This is the lowest increase for our police budget in the history, 23 years, of our existence," he said. "I think that given the additional challenges associated with COVID, as well as having to forecast contractual issues for 2021, this budget, although not quite meeting council's direction of one per cent, is very close [and] fiscally responsible."
Typically, the presentation would include a concise overview of the police budget. However, Conn said because it's a contractual year for the service, it restricts what he can discuss in open session.
"What I can say is that we have a total of $769,947 in expenditure increases," he said. "This includes costs associated to direct cost provisions such as medical, corporate, insurance, fleet and facilities...plus other police service items that fall under labour-relations that we had to forecast in respect to potential contractual issues."
According to Conn's presentation, there were 76,851 police occurrences in 2020, which means officers responded to an average of 211 calls per day and saw more than 4,559 more occurrences than the year before.
When asked by Councillor Aaron Hall about concerns from residents regarding how the Chatham-Kent police force handles officers who are facing disciplinary action, Conn explained that the service has to follow the governance of the Ontario Police Services Act.
"I do have [a couple] officers that are off on suspension with pay. As per the Police Services Act...that is a process that we have. The only time I can suspend an officer without pay, is if they are convicted of an offence, remember everyone is innocent until proven guilty. They need to be convicted of an offence and sentenced to a period of incarceration," Conn explained. "There are times I'd love to be able to suspend an officer without pay but unfortunately, my hands are tied."
Elsewhere in the evening, Councillor Melissa Harrigan put forward a successful motion in hopes of trimming the budget. The motion proposed to slightly reduce the funding increase for underground storm sewer infrastructure from $675,000 to $475,000.
Harrigan was behind the original motion during the 2019 deliberations to invest an extra $550,000 over four years into the storm sewer lifecycle reserve. In 2020, Harrigan requested that $250,000 from year two of the $550,000 funding for underground infrastructure be deferred to years three and four.
Harrigan said she recognized that residents value investments into infrastructure and that underground infrastructure is one of the most under-funded categories
"If times were different, I would be pushing really hard for us to fund this entire $675,000," she said. "But I think tearing off a little bit of this funding really just recognizes the challenges that we face and as councillors. We all have to give a little bit of our priorities but still continue to invest in what's important."
Councillor Joe Faas questioned whether it was a step backward for the municipality's goals of funding underground infrastructure. However, according to General Manager of Infrastructure and Engineering Thomas Kelly, the annual requirement for the storm sewer collector network is currently only 28 per cent funded.
"I know that council is looking for savings. Even at the $475,000 that's proposed, it's better than what we've been able to do in the past...I'm fine with the proposal if we can find a way to accelerate in future years."
Administration went into deliberations with proposed a tax increase of 3.96 per cent in the draft budget. After Wednesday night's meeting, the increase now sits at 3.83 per cent.
Any decision made during deliberations is not considered final until the budget is passed.
Budget deliberations resume on Thursday night at 6 p.m. and will be lived streamed on the Municipality of Chatham-Kent's Facebook Page as well as the YourTv YouTube Channel.
