Maybe the members of Police Services Board (PSB) should have played a couple of rounds of bridge to kill time, so it at least looked as if they had given some consideration to council’s direction to look for efficiencies aimed at reducing its requested 9.22 per cent increase in the 2026 budget.

Instead, after 20 minutes behind closed doors, they emerged with not one efficiency, not one reduction in answer to council’s request. There’s a certain arrogance in that. That’s something of which the elected officials on the PSB (Mayor Jeff Leal and Coun. Gary Baldwin) should beware with an election looming in less than a year. Best they be seen as supporting council’s position.

But, back to the issue at hand.

The 9.2 per cent the police are asking for equates to $3.5 million. Since 2022, the police budget has increased by 48 per cent, or $13 million. To use a favourite phrase of Coun. Keith Riel, that’s not “chump change.”

A lot (90 per cent) of the police budget is driven by staffing costs, which, in turn, are driven by collective bargaining. There is nothing that can be done about that. In fact, the city has only limited control over the police budget, but it does have some influence.

Staffing — both uniformed and nonuniformed — eats up a large chunk of the budget, but exactly how many staff are necessary?

Chief Stuart Betts says an additional 49; the PSB’s own review says only 13. That’s a very broad middle in which to find the truth.

Betts points out that many increased costs are driven by the provincial government’s demand for new initiatives — training, certification, oversight.

“These are some of the things we have to provide,” he said. Of course “we” does not include the province coughing up funding necessary to implement its direction.

So, exactly how much is that necessary funding? For what?

This is in no way an attack on the police. We are fortunate to have the service we do. It is simply that council and the community should have more information as to why the increase it is asking for is needed.

Surely council wants to know. Just as it should have wanted to know — but most didn’t seem to care — some details of the renovations planned for the new police facility on Lansdowne Street and the existing one on Water Street. These are admittedly capital projects, not operating expenses, but they have a huge impact there. Exactly why, for example, did the costs on Lansdowne jump from $66.5 million to $91.9 million? If you were a councillor, wouldn’t you want to know? It appears the majority do not.

Public safety is an issue in all communities, and much of public safety rests with the police. Increasingly, they are asked to deal with issues that properly should rest elsewhere. Issues such as mental health, addiction and homelessness. That reality should be examined and changed.

It’s surely time for a thorough look at police operations. Years ago, in the mid-‘60s, the late Margaret Campbell, then a member of the then-elected Toronto Board of Control and the city’s budget chief, ordered zero-based budget reviews in certain departments. Those reviews, justifying every expense from scratch, found departmental efficiencies, resulting in a reallocation of resources in each.

Staff wasn’t necessarily happy with the additional workload, but the public was with the results, even when it wasn’t facing the 6.56 per cent tax increase we are.

© Peterborough Examiner