North Bay police eyeing a 12.79% budget hike

North Bay police seeking huge budget hike Tuesday morning, North Bay's police services board approved an operating budget with a 12.79 per cent increase.

North Bay police are staring down the barrel of a large budget increase next year.

Approved at Tuesday morning’s police board meeting, the police services operating budget represents a 12.79 per cent increase.

Chief Daryl Longworth said the budget allows them to increase officer presence in the city.

"My role here as a police chief and (the) commitment that I made when I came here is to assess the needs of the community and come up with a plan," Longworth told reporters.

The budget includes adding four officers: two to cover foot patrols, one for drug enforcement and another for traffic enforcement. It also includes three new civilian staff members and efforts to restructure some positions within the service.

"The public wants foot patrols," Longworth said.

"We have supplied foot patrol over this past summer quite successfully, but it meant pulling officers from other areas of the community and pulling them out of other neighborhoods to accomplish that."

The original budget hike was 18.37 per cent, and the chief said a lot of work went into bringing the number down to 12.79 per cent.

"That is a huge ask and I get that," Longworth said.

"We're very cognizant of the fact that this will increase the tax bill on taxpayers," said board chair Rich Stivrins.

"But this is an essential service. We're seeing across the province, whether it's municipal services or whether it's OPP services, there's big increases coming. My comments in the meeting were valid. If we want to start putting a lid on these things, we're going to start investing in the social service end of things."

A city-wide survey conducted from late August to the end of September found that more than 40 per cent of the 2,000 people who responded wanted to see extra spending to improve public safety.

Deputy mayor and budget chief Maggie Horsfield said the value the city will get is what the "community is expecting."

"With the ongoing increases that we see across the board, it’s the cost of doing business these days," Horsfield said.

"As we get closer to the city's deliberations for the operating capital budgets come February/March, I do anticipate there's going to be some tough conversations."

Horsfield and Mayor Peter Chirico have floated the idea of using reserves to offset increased costs associated with the budget hike.

The capital budget was not approved at the meeting. Longworth said he wanted to take extra time to crunch the numbers again to see if further tweaks can be made.

"Can I soften the other costs that were already built in and approved in the capital budget, so we can reduce the overall impact to the tax base?" he said.

One of the things he’s currently exploring is purchasing a new police radio system to replace the 10-year-old outdated technology.

"There have been building coverage issues where officers can't communicate and can't receive information, as well," Longworth said.

He’s hoping to come back to the board with another number before the city begins its budget deliberations in the new year.