THUNDER BAY -- For the first time in a long time, The Police Services Board has good news in regards to its budget.
On Tuesday morning, Police Chief J.P. Levesque announced a positive variance for the first quarter of about one per cent, amounting to slightly more than $300,000 on the plus side.
Levesque said there are a number of contributing factors to the positive trend, the most significant being city council’s 2017 budget approval and proper funding of the labour account.
“The labour account takes into consideration our overtime, and we had been historically underfunding that account and going into a negative variance for any number of years now,” Levesque said.
In January, council and the Police Services Board approved a $1.2 million increase for 2017.
Staff Sgt. Derek West said there's been an overall decrease in crime for the start of 2017, but indicated the decrease is not reflective of the positive budget figures.
Levesque says although crime rates have dropped, the number of disorder issues have increased.
“These are things that aren’t traditionally police-type calls, but we end up going to them because we tend to be the social safety net.”
If the positive variance maintains, it would end a run of five straight years where the police have exceeded their budget.
“We’re pleased to see it,” said Levesque. “It’s early, but we’re really hopeful we can stay down this path.”
The board also announced a new “situation table” in Thunder Bay, which is scheduled to launch in July.
The table incorporates various organizations of the Community Mobilization Network of Thunder Bay to work together to help the community.
“The idea is that the table will meet every two weeks. Different agencies will bring situations with acutely elevated risk,” said West. “From that, we would decide who wants to be involved… and the group would go and make an offer of help.”
The goal of the initiative is to use early intervention and community-shared information as a way of preventing potential danger to the community.
“Each agency could have a piece of the puzzle,” said West. “If we work independently… we don’t have a true picture of what’s happening to someone,” said West. “The idea is to bring that picture forward.”
