Thunder Bay Police Services is looking at a $1.2-million shortfall, a variance the city’s new chief of police blames on sick time, special projects and unforeseen circumstances.
Chief J.P. Levesque said Project Dolphin, which saw an estimated $1 million worth of drugs taken off the streets, the search for missing teen Jordan Wabasse and the evacuation of First Nations communities threatened by wildfires all added dramatically to the 2011 budget.
“It’s certainly not a place I wanted to be taking over as chief,” Levesque said on Wednesday, a day after breaking the news to the Thunder Bay Police Services Board.
“We are expecting that to improve. In fact we’re predicting it will come in quite a bit better … We would have liked to have come in lower yet, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, based on a number of factors.”
Levesque, who took over in July from the now retired Robert Herman, said he expects to receive payment from the province that covers the cost of the evacuations, money that will help offset the deficit.
He also said some costs, Project Dolphin in particular, were hidden on purpose for security reasons and as a result, did not show up in the original budget. But the costs did when the third-quarter variance was calculated.
“We knew we had a fairly substantial project we were heading into and (chief Herman) didn’t budget for any of it,” Levesque said. “For security reasons he didn’t want a red flag on it, seeing a big increase in the drug unit or the intelligence unit or the gang unit, whoever was involved.”
The decision to keep the numbers off the books got the blessing of the police board.
There’s little senior management can do about the issue of sick time and injury leave, he said. Overtime numbers are also high.
“We historically have upwards of 40 people off on sick leave at any given time,” Levesque said. “And it’s really hard to predict. From year to year, you just don’t know.
“If you look back historically and do an analysis of where you’ve been, we’ve always under-funded our overtime accounts. Two years ago, when we were first told to cut our budget, it was one of the first places we looked.”
Levesque noted it won’t get any easier heading into 2012, with three bargaining units in contract negotiations and near certain raises being awarded to the membership in all three. He said the department will look for more efficiencies, though said it won’t be at the expense of the uniformed officer numbers.
TBPS did cut one senior investigator position, choosing not to replace someone who moved on.
