Region’s policing budget back in spotlight over apparent police board omission

More than a month after the Region of Waterloo officially signed off on its 2023 budget, the policing portion is back in the spotlight over concerns regional council was purposely left in the dark.

It has to do with a KPMG report, heavily relied on by the police services board in arguing a need to add 55 new officers over the next three years.

The issue isn’t with the confidential, internal report itself, but a six-page executive summary which was then passed on to regional councillors who now suggest it was short a few key details.

“Consider increasing total front-line officers to address population growth and help reduce the crime severity index and increase clearance rates,” reads the top item on the report’s list of ‘Top Recommendations’.

That recommendation goes on to suggest police also “establish target staffing levels that account for officers on leave (Active Staffing Model) using budget surpluses for staffing.”

And therein lies the rub. The full version of the KPMG report suggests police tap into previous budget surpluses to offset the cost of annual officer additions, though that suggestion was not included in what was presented to council.

“The Service had an average of $3.3 million budget surplus from 2019 to 2021 related to staffing costs, largely due to savings from staff on leave, and delays in recruiting new staff,” reads the full report. “The Service’s lowest budget surplus appeared in 2019 with a $2.1 million surplus and the largest was in 2020 with a $4.9 million surplus.”

“Based on estimated 2023 salary costs, the lowest budget surplus seen in 2019 could equate to approximately 18 additional First Class Constables.”

As part of the 2023 budget, the region has agreed to boost police spending by more than $18 million and approve the hiring of 19 new officers in 2023, followed by an additional 18 in each of 2024 and 2025.

The report, then, suggests the hiring of these new officers could be more than covered by tapping into those past budget surpluses, so long as the money hasn’t already been reinvested elsewhere.

This is, once again, causing contention on regional council over concern some may feel they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes, with Coun. Colleen James taking to social media to say she’s “extremely disappointed that [councillors] were not provided with this [full report] in advance.”

Coun. Rob Deutschmann, also taking to Twitter to note three councillors, including Region Chair Karen Redman, sit on the police services board and would have had access to the full report, unlike their colleagues. He also suggested it’s possible, had this information been known at the time, a deadlocked vote to send the police budget back to the board for cuts may have turned out differently.