THUNDER BAY – Mayor Bill Mauro says he will call on the Ontario Civilian Police Commission to pay the salary of an outside administrator it appointed to oversee Thunder Bay’s police force due to internal dysfunction.
In a sign of just how long that dysfunction has been playing out, Mauro said he’d convinced the OCPC to foot the bill the last time it appointed an administrator to take over decision-making for the Thunder Bay Police Services Board, in 2018.
Mauro is one of two people remaining on the besieged board, after three of its five members resigned in protest of the OCPC’s decision last week.
The mayor said he shared those members’ objections, but felt he had a duty to stay on “at least in the near term” to represent the city’s residents in discussions with administrator Malcolm Mercer.
At a city council meeting on Monday, Mauro said the city was originally supposed to pay the salary of administrator Thomas Lockwood in 2018.
Lockwood was appointed after a report prepared for the OCPC by Murray Sinclair recommended disolving the previous board, which he found had perpetuated discrimination by the police force against Indigenous people.
However, Mauro said the OCPC took up the costs after the issue was raised with Lockwood.
“It was [originally] going to be our cost,” he said. “After that discussion with him, it was not.”
Mauro pledged to raise the issue with Mercer at a meeting next week.
The exchange came as council reviewed a report on municipal finances, which projected the city will finish 2022 in a roughly $900,000 deficit.
That’s partly thanks to the police services board spending a projected $200,000 more in legal costs than it budgeted by year-end. Its 2022 budget had already increased dramatically, after the board went more than $500,000 over its 2021 budget, also largely attributed to legal costs.
If the projections prove accurate, the TBPSB will cost the city $653,700 in 2022, a wild jump from its approved 2021 budget of just $223,500.
Coun. Andrew Foulds raised the question of whether the city would be on the hook for the salary of an administrator, and expressed hope Mauro would be successful in again urging the OCPC to pay the costs.
