Despite a couple city council members expressing some hesitancy, they ended tonight’s debate with unanimous support for Greater Sudbury Police Service’s 2024 and 2025 budgets.
The budgets carry respective increases of 8.09 per cent and 6.2 per cent, and include hiring 26 additional staff members by the end of 2025, including 20 sworn constables.
Including the new spending, the police service will cost Greater Sudbury taxpayers a total of $162,087,366 over the two budget years of 2024 and 2025.
During the Dec. 12 finance and administration committee meeting of city council, both Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent and Ward 4 Coun. Pauline Fortin expressed some misgivings about the police budget hikes.
Citing their “disproportionate” share of recent years’ tax increases, Parent questioned whether police could lessen their reserve contributions for a few years to help pare down tax increases.
“I have the highest level of respect for Chief (Paul) Pedersen and all of the officers and the support staff at Greater Sudbury Police Service, and the work they do, and we’re in very challenging times and they need more officers, and I fully support that,” he clarified.
“We’re in bad shape,” Fortin said. “We have a lot of opioid deaths, violent crime (severity) index is really high, and I struggle if this is the best value for our dollar.”
Mayor Paul Lefebvre sits on the police board, and told his colleagues that they’d already lowered the budget a great deal.
“I went through the exercise of bringing it down and bringing it down, and at a certain point they need to operate, and they need the capital to make sure they have the facilities and the equipment to continue to operate,” he said.
“We need to make sure our police service has the ability to do their jobs day in and day out in as safe a way as possible.”
In October, police tabled proposed 2024-25 budgets with the board which included a 10.66-per-cent increase in 2024 and a 6.92-per-cent increase in 2025.
On Nov. 1, the police board unanimously backed 2024-25 budgets with respective increases of 8.09 per cent and 6.2 per cent.
Cuts included eliminating $500,000 annual increases in future years’ facilities reserve contributions, cutting $398,438 in budgeted overtime and delaying some of the new hires by several months.
The staff additions to be brought on board in 2024 include:
- 10 constables (discussed during last year’s budget talks)
- One equity diversity inclusion strategist
- One communications infrastructure technology programmer
- One digital evidence processor
- One internal communications strategist
Staff additions in 2025 include:
- Four constables (discussed during last year’s budget talks)
- Six constables, including three specializing in drugs and three in sexual assaults
- Two forensic specialists
The current authorized staffing complement at GSPS is 423 members, including 283 sworn members and 140 civilian employees.
City council members’ unanimous support on Dec. 12 excludes Ward 2 Coun. Michael Vagnini, Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier and Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer, who were not present. As chair of the Greater Sudbury police board, Sizer voted in favour of the 2024-25 police budgets on Nov. 1.
Other budget news
During the Dec. 12 finance and administration committee meeting of city council, unanimous support was also afforded to Conservation Sudbury and Greater Sudbury Public Library 2024-25 budgets.
Between 2023-25, Conservation Sudbury’s budget is slated to increase by $207,590 (to $1.37 million), equating an 18-per-cent increase, and the library’s budget will increase by $798,136 (to $10.06 million), or a nine-per-cent increase.
Greater Sudbury budget deliberations will continue on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19.
The Dec. 18 finance and administration meeting begins at 1 p.m., and the Dec. 19 meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. Both meetings can be viewed in-person at Tom Davies Square or livestreamed by clicking here.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
