Hamilton Police want to keep a $3.7 million budget surplus
Surplus is almost as much as the $4.2 million they asked the city to add to 2016 budget
Police Chief Eric Girt will make a case Thursday that the Hamilton Police Service be allowed to keep a $3.68 million budget surplus from last year and use it to help fund its new investigative headquarters.
That's nearly as much as the service asked for as an increase in 2016's budget, approved in December.
We've desperately got to get this investigative services building underway.- Police Board chair Lloyd Ferguson
The plan for the surplus is set to be one of the first public negotiations between the recently-promoted chief and the service's oversight board at the board's monthly meeting on Thursday.
The decision about a smaller, $1.8 million surplus was contentious last year, when a board member grilled then-Chief Glenn De Caire about why the city should cover any police deficits but not reap the benefits when there's a surplus.
Girt wants to set almost all of the $3.68 million surplus aside toward the construction of its new standalone investigative services division headquarters, which De Caire described as years overdue.
Saving up for a new investigative HQ
The two surpluses combined total almost $5.5 million and would account for roughly the service's share of the $16.5 million project.
But Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, chair of the Police Services Board, doesn't expect the discussion to conclude the surplus is anything other than "exceedingly good news."
"I'm pleased that it's a surplus, not a shortfall," Ferguson said. "We've desperately got to get this investigative services building underway."
The money could help the service "get across the finish line," he said.
But Ferguson said the intricacies of accounting and reimbursement and revenues are the reason for the surplus, not any kind of sneakiness to get the money for the building.
"If you're trying to paint the picture that (the service) padded the budget on the levy to try to get the money, that's not true," Ferguson said.
When the budget was passed in December, Ferguson made special mention of the fact that the increase, $4.2 million, represented about 2.8 per cent over the 2015 budget — the lowest budget increase in 17 years.
But that was before nearly that same amount was identified as extra. Hamilton Police said the budgets and expenditures have been audited and included copies of the audit in the agenda for Thursday's meeting.
Operational savings
The 2015 operating budget was around $158.7 million, offset by about $10 million in grants and revenues.
The police service is pursuing agreements with the province and federal governments to each kick in one-third of the cost of the forensics building. Different numbers have been floated in estimates for the building, but it's expected to cost at least $16.5 million.
The first time the need for the building arose in police space planning was 1995, he said last fall.
The service attributes the surplus to the following:
- provincial reimbursements for Pan Am Games activities
- unbudgeted grants/subsidies
- greater revenue than expected in police fees
- savings in net expenditures