Timmins Police is looking at ways to bring down its 2024 budget.
At its meeting yesterday (March 7), the Timmins Police Services board talked about ways the increase, which is currently up 3.7 per cent or $699,450 from 2023, could be whittled down. No decisions were made at the meeting, and the item is expected to be back at the April police services board meeting.
The conversation is in the wake of Timmins council denying the proposed increases of the six external agencies, boards and commissions (ABCs) that affect the municipal tax levy.
The municipal increase is three per cent, and council is looking for the ABCs to match that. Of the six ABCs, Timmins Police and the Mattagami Region Conservation Authority (MRCA) were the only two that had a budget increase under five per cent. The police services board is the only ABC that presented its budget to Timmins council members.
SEE: Timmins denies local board budget hikes
Coun. Steve Black, who drove the conversation at the council meeting, is also a member of the police services board.
At yesterday's meeting, Black explained why the budgets had been sent back.
For Timmins Police, the main increases, he said, are for modernization, recruitment and retention, and capital programs.
Black said he doesn't want to touch the capital programs.
“But if the city wants us to get down on the three, we can probably hold off on some of our retention-recruitment allocation, it just means we’d have to move more over in the following two years. Or depending on how successful or not successful the programs are, we might not require as much as we anticipated pending what the final numbers are at the end of the program,” Black said.
There is another way that the budget could be brought down, said board chair Kraymr Grenke.
If a request for proposal (RFP) for replacing radios is adjusted, he said the budget "would come in line with the city" without touching the three priorities.
“There’s a way for us to get there without cutting too much,” said Grenke.
