WRPS asking for $14M increase to 2024 budget, council to discuss next week

Waterloo Regional Police Service’s board gave approval on Wednesday to a proposed 2024 budget of $228.4 million.

This would see a $14.4 million increase from last year along with a 4.62 per cent increase on regional property taxes.

There will be a presentation to regional council on Nov. 22 – while final approval could come in mid-December.

Waterloo Regional Police Chief Mark Crowell explained “This budget has been crafted with the consent and the help of our community.”

“We’re not only grounded in legislative requirements to provide adequate and effective policing across the region but also listening to our community, we’ve been in a period of strategic business planning throughout the year.”

Kirsten Hand, the WRPS director of finance and assets stated some of the factors that impacted the 2024 budget.

“Increasing rates of inflation. On our capital side, we have seen the cost of construction impact our facility capital projects by 12 per cent year over year. There’s contractual increases that we must factor into budget estimates from our collective agreements such as cost-of-living increases.”

“We’ve seen benefit cost increases including the enhanced CPP federal program, cost in health and dental coverage, WSIB costs, retiree benefit costs, which were mitigated in the last collective agreement by the board,” explained Hand.

There were adjustments made to the prior estimate in October in order to lower the budget.

Hand explained that after careful assessment, they were able to remove $1.9 million off of the budget.

“A number of those items were a review of our front-line technology, program timing and implementation, as well as decreases to various lines based upon updated spend information,” she stated.

Hand also said “This budget works out to $780 per average taxes for a typical residence, which is increased by $34 year over year.”