City raids reserves to keep police budget in line

The City of Ottawagiveth $4.8 million, and Mayor Jim Watson taketh half of it away.

In an odd shell game that involved moving pots of reserve money from department to department, the Ottawa Police Service believed it was getting $4.8 million to help fund an operating budget gap Wednesday, only to find out less than two hours later that the mayor is redirecting half of the money to other projects.

• Ottawa police have work to do to meet budget target
• New Ottawa police board wants old community police model

Here's how it went down.

Police told the Ottawa PoliceServices Board thatit needs about $17.1 million more for its2019 budget,which would have translated to a 5-per-cent tax increase.

In order tokeep the tax increase to three per cent, which was the direction given by council,seniorcity staff agreed togive the force$4.8 million from its main reserve fund, and work on ways to reduce the force's expenses in future years.

Surprise announcement

But not two hours after Chief CharlesBordeleautabled the 2019 draft budgetearly Wednesday morning, Watson announced he was taking half of the bridge fundingback.

"When [thefinance committee]meets to consider its budget on March 5, I will be recommending that [thecommittee] reduce the one-time contribution to the OPS from $4.8 million to $2.4 million," Watson said in his budget speech.

The mayor is redirecting $2 million to housing, and the other $400,000 to programs for at-risk youths.

That will leave the police looking for $2.4 million in cuts.

There's a suggestion that the city and police consolidate their backroom operations:the city took over the police's payroll a few years back, for example, and it could to the same for the force's human resources and IT departments.

But these are not quick fixes, and there's also no guarantee that consolidating services will save substantial money.

1/3 of new officers on traffic duty

Bordeleau said that an additional $12.1 million is needed in 2019 just to maintain existing services, with most of the increase going to automatic wage hikes.

Police are also asking for $3.7 million to hire 30 new officers, 10 of which will be assigned to traffic enforcement a measure Watson campaigned on in last fall's election and another $1.3 million to continue to modernize their administrative operations.

The city is also allocatingrevenuefrom three new red light camerasnot existing ones to police, which should bring in about $450,000 a year.

More significantly, the city was giving police$4.8 million from its tax-stabilization fund, a reserve fund usually raided at the end of the fiscal year to keep taxes steady.

"It's not a perfect solutionby any stretch of the imagination," said police board chair Coun. Diane. Deans when asked about the reserve funds early in the morning..

"But my goal is to makesurethe police service is not under fundedand that they have the money that they need to keep this community safe."

It's not clear what the board will do now that the mayor has said he's against giving police $4.8 million.

Even before the mayor's surprise declaration, Deans directedBordeleau to bring a list of budget expenditures that do not impact front-line police service to the board's audit and finance committee meeting on Feb. 20, where the public is welcome to make presentations.