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Police hold steady at 6.2% budget increase for 2025

A brief police board meeting updated ratepayers on Greater Sudbury Police Service’s 2025 budget, which has held steady at the 6.2% increase the board approved last year
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GSPS, greater sudbury police service, GSPS sign, logo, 190 Brady Street, headquarters, HQ

The Greater Sudbury Police Service budget increase of 6.2 per cent for 2025 has held steady.

During a brief police board meeting, members unanimously approved an operating budget of $83,494,284.97, which came in approximately $5,000 shy of the one they approved last year.

The current budget year is their first within a city-imposed multi-year budget cycle, under which two-year operating budgets and four-year capital budgets are approved.

The new process includes annual “maintenance year” budget updates, as Chief Sara Cunningham put it during Wednesday’s meeting, to account for changes during the year.

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Chief Sara Cunningham of the Greater Sudbury Police Service. Supplied

The three-year balance of their four-year capital budget forecasts $14,368,690 to be spent between 2025-27 budget years, including $4.95 million set aside for a new police building fund.

There is currently $7.3 million in the reserve fund toward the construction of new police headquarters, which is estimated to cost more than $170 million and proposed to be located on Frobisher Street.

Although $4.95 million will be set aside for the capital project, board chair Al Sizer clarified that not all of it is likely to remain in the fund. So far this year, approximately $500,000 has been drawn from the reserve fund to pay for issues within their current building, with more draws likely.

“It becomes a facility maintenance fund almost,” Sizer clarified.

“Serious infrastructure issues” persist in the existing building at 190 Brady St. Cunningham said, noting that they still have a cell block area that needs to be replaced.

Per recent budget hikes, police have been adding 10 sworn members per year to their ranks, including 10 already on the job for this year and an additional 10 being lined up for 2025.

On this front, the greatest expenditure and increase in 2025 is in salaries and benefits, which are poised to jump by 6.71 per cent from 2024 to $74,196,328. During the 2024 and 2025 budget years, police were approved to add 26 staff members, including the 20 sworn members.

In addition to holding steady to the already-approved 2025 operating budget and 2025-27 capital budgets, Cunningham also provided a brief update on police operations during her presentation.

Although they’d originally planned to “flip the switch” on a next-generation 911 system in November, they’re no longer anticipated to meet this self-imposed deadline. However, they’re still aiming to meet the province’s “lofty” March 2025 deadline.

Cunningham also reiterated the oft-repeated fact that the vast majority of calls police respond to are not criminal in nature. Of the 63,626 calls for service they responded to in 2023, 84 per cent were not criminal in nature.

“We are going to a lot,” she said, noting that police are available 24/7 and are often required to assist in social disorder calls and cases where patients aren’t compliant with health-care professionals.

Police are continuing to work with other service providers to create an environment in which police are responding to fewer non-criminal calls so they can better focus on proactive police work, Cunningham said.

Sizer is expected to present the updated police budgets to city council on Nov. 15, but with everything remaining in line with the budgets a unanimous city council approved on Dec. 12, 2023, it’s expected to pass.

Meanwhile, Greater Sudbury city council members will have more work to do in order to finalize their 2025 budget.

The city’s 2025 draft budget update will be released next month, which the city’s elected officials are expected to finalize by the end of the year. Approved last year at a 7.3-per-cent jump, Mayor Paul Lefebvre passed a successful motion for staff to cut $8.5 million to hit a 4.9-per-cent tax levy increase next year.

At the latest update last month, the tax hike had been knocked down to 7.1 per cent, leaving a gap of $7.8 million to hit the 4.9-per-cent jump. 

On top of these cuts and whatever impact they might have, city council members will also debate the merits of various business cases which propose service-level changes.

Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.