At a meeting of the strategic planning and budget committee on Wednesday, Waterloo Regional Council rejected a motion to send the Waterloo Regional Police budget back to the Waterloo Regional Police Services Board for further study.
The current budget proposal sees a 7.2 per cent increase, which would take the budget from around $200 million to around $214 milllion.
The service is looking to add 55 more officers over the next three years, including 19 in 2023.
Coun. Robert Deutschmann brought forward the motion on Wednesday night, which was seconded by another Kitchener councillor, Colleen James.
“I brought this motion because after watching the Police Services Board meetings, reviewing the documents in police budget, I had some concerns, and I felt as if enough councillors shared those concerns, the police services board had time to respond,” he said, as the entire budget for the region will likely be approved on Feb. 22.
His main sticking point was that funds were being allocated for the hiring of officers on Jan. 1 who were not expected to be hired until April at the earliest.
Deutschmann said that amounted to around $1 million that could be spent elsewhere, such as on social services or on lower tax increases.
“As a municipality, we can not budget for a surplus or a deficit and we should not accept it from our partners,” he said.
Region Chair Karen Redman, who is one of three members of council who serve on the police services board, rejected the notion that the money would simply be taken from the police and given to a social agency.
“I would ask you to reject the binary notion that it is for the police services or for social services,” she countered.
“There was a lot of scrutiny for this budget and one of the reasons you see this budget being spaced over three years is because the leadership of WRPS felt very keenly that they knew this was a tough budget year.”
The council was actually split evenly 8-8 as to whether to pass Deutschmann’s motion, but a tie goes to rejection.
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