Members of the Belleville Police Service Board met this morning to revisit their original 15% budget increase presented last month.
Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis requested that the board review the budget before the City’s budget delibirations in February.
After this morning’s discussion and review, including Mayor Ellis, the board devided to keep the over $33.5 million budget, representing a 15% increase over last year.
Members of the board acknowledged that the increase was high and the high costs of living in general. However, the increase is needed to provide adequate policing, as well as staffing, to the City of Belleville and its growing needs.
“We have a duty of care, and with that duty, we have to provide safe policing,” said Mayor Ellis.
“I don’t like the increase and I’ve stated that at the last meeting. Policing is expensive, all communities are seeing that. I’ve got to listen to the members here.”
Chief Murray Rodd said the board has to consider public safety and what the police do as an investment.
“It’s an investment in people and the investment in the equipment that we need to be more efficient,” he said.
“That is one layer of our accountability, but the whole issue of modernizing the organization is another. That comes with technology and new methedologies of doing business and doing our practice. The Criminal Justice System is the big looming piece that is never apart of these conversations that consumes our time and energy. That is because it is the police and the process that is on trial in Canada, not the convict of the accused. Everything that we do is on trial and we have to get it right every time, otherwise bad people will not get convicted, charges will be withdrawn, and we will be sued,”
“Everyone else in the process has some control, the accused has control over if they appear or not in court, take the stand or not, we have zero input. Once we launch a criminal process or provincial prosecution, we are now at the hands of all the players, which means that could be officers on overtime, they could be pulled back and do more digging, and some of our criminal matters will have a lifespan of three to five years,”
“Evidence in Belleville was the solving of the 25-year-old major violent sexual assault at a major community hotel, and the fact that it was so successful that it was a gold-standard investigation that spanned 25 years, which means the men and women of this service have been providing gold-standard service to the community for that duration. Everything had to be right for that outcome to be achieved. That’s importnat to understand.”
It was mentioned that Belleville is one of the fastest growing cities in the province and the police need an increased budget to keep up with the evolving needs in the community. The total amounts to $33,524,718.00.
This will be brought to Belleville City Council’s budget deliberations in February.
