The Greater Sudbury Police Services' $65.7 million budget was a focal point of Tuesday's discussion at the finance and administration committee meeting.
March 2 was the second night of budget finalization discussions for the city's finance committee, and a number of resolutions were passed to approve the budgets of the city's partners.
Among those partners is the Greater Sudbury Police Service, who have by far the largest budget of the city's partners. The finance committee approved the city's share of the tax support budget for the GSPS 2021 budget in the gross expenditure amount of $71,627,707 and a net property tax levy requirement of $65,726,611.
Mayor Brian Bigger spoke up against the resolution, singling out one point of contention — the city's annual contribution for a future police headquarters.
The city has contributed an increasing amount to the police budget for a future headquarters since 2018, contributing $600,000 that year, $900,000 in 2019 and $1.4 million in 2020. The amount will increase until it hits $3.4 million in 2024.
"If we were to follow that schedule there would be contributions of about $13.5 million into the reserve," said Bigger. "From council's perspective, that reserve would be dedicated to a police headquarters."
However, no decision has been made on the future GSPS headquarters and Bigger raised the point that the money could be better invested into projects that are already on the table, where the city would see a return on its investment.
"At this point in time we've contributed roughly $3 million into a reserve for a future police headquarters and at the end of 2024 we'll have contributed $13.5 million and from the perspective of putting money into a bank account, we all know what the interest rates are and we have projects that have returns," said Bigger.
"If we pick a number of the business cases we've been presented with they have an annual return of half a million dollars and a payback over three years. I'm having a bit of a challenge taking this money to put into a reserve account somewhere for a project that hasn't been determined to move forward."
Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre acknowledged the mayor's point, countering that the current police headquarters on Brady Street was insufficient, while commending the police service for having a plan in place to set money aside for a new building.
"I'm not quite on the same train of thought; we always talk about being prepared and thinking of the future and why is our infrastructure debt so large, and we have so many buildings that are falling apart," said Lapierre.
"I find the police are being proactive in putting money aside to be able to develop a plan so that they can pay for a portion of it and then finance another portion once the plan is approved."
Lapierre concluded by indicating that he wouldn't feel good about sending the budget back to GSPS because they're trying to save money.
Bigger stuck to his guns, stating that he wasn't in favour of money being set aside with no return.
"I do believe that we have more urgent business cases. I'm not saying that we wouldn't fund a headquarters, however more people in every line of business are working from home. There are fewer people if you go by headquarters," said Bigger.
"This is forcing a tax increase that I don't think is necessary while we have the opportunity to advance business cases that will have paybacks."
In this year's budget, the city will contribute $1.65 million to GSPS that is to be earmarked for building debt capacity. However, Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland pointed out a line item in the 2021 GSPS budget for $1.65 million — the amount the city will contribute — that is assigned to building renovations.
"It doesn't make sense that they're anticipating that they're going to spend the exact amount this year on the renovations needed to maintain the services in the existing facility," said McCausland.
"Do we know whether there's $1.65 million that has already been contributed to that reserve fund that could be used for those renovations if we said no to the budget here today?"
Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini, council's representative on the police services board, stated that he did not have any information on hand as to whether the board had funds built up that could be used for repairs in 2021.
"My concern is that we actually have a payback that we could receive if we invested it prior to police actually requiring it for their headquarters," said Bigger.
"I wouldn't expect our staff to request capital funding for an aerial fire truck and then not buy an aerial truck and buy something else. It seems the specific request each year is for new headquarters and from what I've heard tonight, the police board is spending that money on other renovations projects."
Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier spoke to the matter, stating that the city's finance committee had agreed that this option was acceptable for the GSPS to build up their capital envelope in order to debt finance their new headquarters.
"We've already been told that they're (GSPS) now in three sites; so as the service grows which we hope it does because we hope we have community growth," said Cormier.
"It's reasonable to say that if they're already outgrowing their current footprint to the point where they're leasing two other locations, that's certainly not going to help the budget because of lease rates and maintenance costs on those various facilities. I think the biggest point is everybody acknowledges that the building they're in was never designed for police occupation."
The committee approved the city's share of the tax support budget for the GSPS 2021 budget in the gross expenditure amount of $71,627,707 and a net property tax levy requirement of $65,726,611. Voting in opposition were Mayor Bigger, Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier and Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland.
The committee also approved the following resolutions on Tuesday evening:
- The water/wastewater operating budget in the gross expenditure amount of $86,407,809, representing a user rate increase of 4.8%
- The water/wastewater 2021 capital budget in the amount of $45,030,952 funded as follows: Contributions from Water/Wastewater User Fees $34,220,982; Contributions from Federal Grants $960,000; Contributions from the City of Greater Sudbury’s Reserves and Reserve Funds $9,399,970; Third party recoveries of $450,000
- The city's share of the tax supported budget for Conservation Sudbury 2021 budget in the gross expenditure of $1,088,919 and a net property tax levy requirement of $1,088,919
- The city's share of the tax supported budget for the Public Health, Sudbury & Districts 2021 budget in the gross expenditure amount of $7,297,256 and a net property tax levy requirement of $7,297,256
- The city's share of the tax supported budget for the Sudbury Airport Personnel 2021 budget in the gross expenditure amount of $3,341,096 and a net property tax levy requirement of $0
- The city’s share of the tax supported budget for the Greater Sudbury Public Library, inclusive of Citizen Services Centres, 2021 budget in the gross expenditure amount of $9,068,156 and a net property tax levy requirement of $8,386,521
