Human trafficking and intimate partner violence is a problem.
It’s a problem the Guelph Police Services Board has recognized is so bad it wants to get six sworn officers in place much quicker than initially anticipated, at an additional cost of $250,000 next year.
The board voted to add the quarter million dollars to what was initially proposed in its operating budget for next year, boosting the $606,764 earmarked for those new officers to $856,764.
Mayor Cam Guthrie put the motion forward following a discussion at Thursday afternoon’s meeting.
“I would rather you have the extra funds to have the ability to onboard quicker on an issue that we obviously want to attack,” Guthrie said.
“If that doesn’t come to fruition, then we would have a positive variance to show that at the end of the year.”
The basis of the additional funding is to get workers hired and doing the work sooner.
Shaun Hewitt, GPS’ financial services manager, told the board the initial estimate put in the report was on the basis that these officers would be on board for six months of the 12 on average.
“In some cases, maybe we bring them on earlier or we bring them on later,” he said.
“The thought process was really to match the capacity to put them through OPC and to utilize and train them.”
Hewitt said there is potential to move it faster, but added the restriction isn’t on how fast these officers can be hired, it’s the external training.
“We thought the six months was a reasonable average and a reasonable estimate, given the busyness of the school,” he said.
Guthrie threw out a hypothetical scenario where some potential officers who apply for these positions aren’t in need of the training because they’re doing the work somewhere else.
“Why do we have to tie the funding to the police college and the training if you’re looking for people that are already meeting the job description requirements that might be able to be hired sooner,” he said.
Chief Gord Cobey said it is possible, and if there is an opportunity to advance it, “we will do everything in our power to advance those hirings based on funding.”
Guthrie said he personally has no issue supporting extra money “if that meant that we can tackle this issue quicker.”
Hewitt noted to accelerate the hiring, and changing the assumption to 11 months instead of six would cost between $200,000 and $250,000.
Vice-chair Jane Armstrong said her thinking is that the extra money will provide the opportunity to accelerate hiring, if possible. She said she supports putting the money forward to provide the resources to deal with the issue.
“I am in support of the principle,” added board member Phil Allt. “(But) I would prefer that this to come back with a breakdown because that’s a sizeable increase to that $600,000. It’s an excess of a 33 per cent increase on that.”
Fellow board member Ajay Sharma asked if asking for an additional report from the chief’s office would be counter-intuitive, and set things back in timelines.
An answer wasn’t directly given, but it was noted the city is asking for submissions by next Friday.
The vote was called and the extra $250,000 was approved unanimously.
Council is scheduled to confirm external board budgets on Jan. 22.
Before factoring in assessment growth, this would push the net operating budget increase from 9.1 per cent to 9.5 per cent. The 7.97 per cent reported ahead of the meeting factors in the assessment growth.
Afterwards, Guthrie said it is a difficult time with budgets and affordability but community safety cannot be sacrificed.
“The investments that have been made, year-over-year-over-year, are showing the results that we need in our community by becoming a safer community, a police service that is responding faster, that is making a better, more positive impact in our community,” he said.
“It’s not a new problem, we’re just recognizing it, I guess, more,” Staff Sgt. Melanie Clark remarked before Guthrie asked for the additional funds.
“With the additional resources, we’re able to police it more. You’ll see higher stats because we’re spending that time with education, with getting out there and looking for it with our front line being educated. That’s where you’re seeing it.”
She said they’ll be able to police the issue more effectively and efficiently with the additional funds.
Cobey added it’ll also be tackled more collaboratively, with the help of community partners.
“It’s a suite of proactive solutions because doing what we can with what we have isn’t good enough anymore,” the chief added. “We need to acknowledge there’s an issue, and I want our city to lead by example and take a holistic, proactive approach.
“This is the start of that, and I would argue the basic requirement to get going on that.”
