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More police to hit the streets sooner

BY KEITH LACEY [email protected] It appears most of the 15 new front-line officers promised by the province for the Greater Sudbury Police Service will be hired within the next year.
Sudbury.com Staff

BY KEITH LACEY

It appears most of the 15 new front-line officers promised by the province for the Greater Sudbury Police Service will be hired within the next year.

Equally good news is, unlike the rest of the province, hiring most of these new officers won?t cost local taxpayers a penny. The province is paying the full cost to hire 60 new officers across Northern Ontario.

In the rest of the province, taxpayers will only be reimbursed for 50 percent of the cost of hiring new officers.

Greater Sudbury Police Chief Ian Davidson told the Greater Sudbury Police Services Board Monday the province has again changed its mind. Instead of allowing the local service to hire 15 officers over three years, it looks like 10 of those officers will be hired within the next year.

?We will know where we stand on Nov. 21? as the government finalizes all details about its Safer Communities initiative, said Davidson.

The province promised last year to spend $37 million to hire 1,000 new officers in a partnership program with police services across Ontario. Greater Sudbury was promised 15 new officers.

Davidson originally believed all 15 could be hired in time for 2006, but plans changed and he believed it would take three years.

However, the government has recommitted to the program and most of the officers for Greater Sudbury should be working by the end of 2006, with two expected to be hired Jan. 1, another four April 1 and another four Sept. 1, 2006, he told the board.

He hopes the remaining five will be hired Jan. 1, 2007.

Greater Sudbury currently has the lowest amount of police officers based on population and geographical coverage in Northern Ontario.

?We have the lowest cops per pops, as it?s called, and largest geographic area to cover...no wonder members of the public are complaining,? he said.

The cost to local taxpayers to hire the 15 officers won?t be felt until 2008 and projected budget impact is $2.25 per household or .4 percent on the average property tax bill, he said.

?I think it is absolutely essential we do this,? he said. ?To add $1 million in salaries to this community at a cost of $2.25 per household...is an extremely good investment.?

The addition of 15 new officers would bring the total compliment with the local service to 256.