Kingston Police likely to go over budget by year’s end

Working with a deficit is never a good thing, but that’s the situation Kingston Police could find themselves in by the end of the fiscal year.

The police force says unforeseen costs like overtime to police the University District are contributing to the increase in spending. But will city hall back them up?

It costs a lot to police a city the size of Kingston. In fact, it’s about $45 million.

For the first six months of this year, Kingston Police are just under half a million dollars over budget. But acting police chief Scott Fraser that’s due in large part to a number of payments that needed to be made up front before they received the monthly funding for it from the city.

“It’s showing as a deficit, but last quarter it was higher, this quarter it’s lower, next quarter it’ll be lower,” Fraser said. “So we’re really tracking operationally to come in at a zero-per cent budget.”

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However, Fraser adds that the force is on pace to come out at about even or with a slight deficit – but that will depend on any extra policing around the University District during times like homecoming or even Halloween.

“How many of those are going to take place? And obviously, there was no money in the budget for that,” Fraser said. “So we’re working in our organization to try and squeeze every dollar we can to try and offset some of those costs.”

In previous years the city has brought in extra officers from a number of municipalities in order to deal with the large number of students on Aberdeen Street. But Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson says the city will find a way to make the budget work, even with the added costs brought on by nuisance parties.

“As a city, we do have reserve funds, and obviously that’s what we’ve been able to bring on board in previous years when there’s been a deficit,” Paterson said.

“But for me, I think what’s critical is that we have a sustainable budget for a city and a sustainable budget for police.”

In the meantime, acting chief Fraser and his team will continue to find cost savings to make up a substantial overtime bill by the time the fiscal year has ended.