Kingston Police’s 2023 draft budget has spending increase of 3.5%

Kingston Police have released a draft budget for 2023 that calls for an increase of more than 3.5 per cent.

That would bring the cost of policing in Kingston to $49.5M.

The increase is more than double the amount that city officials have been allowing for external agencies.

Police Chief Antje McNeely says the budget increase has been contained as much as possible.

“There’s no ability here for wiggle room. This is a very lean budget to begin with,” said McNeely.

Chief McNeely presented the budget proposal to the Police Services Board on November 17.

The draft budget includes hiring eight officers and filling four civilian positions in 2023.

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There are a number of unexpected expenses the police force has had to bear over the last year, according to the Police Services Board Chair, Jarrod Stearns.

“No one expected to have six murders this year in Kingston, of which the overtime to make sure to get these people off the street is like, immense,” said Stearns. “So that is a current event that would affect the budget from what we thought 2022 would have been. So we say ‘working budget’ but it really is working budget through the whole year.”

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Even without the new hire, Chief McNeely says the budget increase would come in at 2.74 per cent, still substantially higher than the 1.5 per cent increase recommended by the city.

“No matter what we do, we are not going to be able to achieve this. So, we need to look after the health and welfare of our members, and we have to have a community response that is community safety oriented for all of our communities. And we can’t do that without extra members,” said McNeely.

The budget hasn’t been approved by the Police Services Board yet.