Chatham-Kent council made two significant decisions during their opening night of budget deliberations held last night at the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre.
First, they approved the police services budget, which featured a 3.3 per cent increase. This is the second biggest annual percentage increase in the Chatham-Kent police budget in the past 15 years.
Police chief Chief Gary Conn called the recommended police budget a bare bones budget, featuring no service reductions and no additional hires.
Conn said the increase is low compared to other municipal police budgets in the province. As a comparison, Sarnia recently approved an 11.5 per cent increase for their police budget.
Second, in an effort to try and find some savings, councillor Anthony Ceccacci entered a successful motion asking that the six per cent inflation figure for capital and lifecycle costs be lowered to four per cent, for a savings of $1.3 million.
Ceccacci said it’s challenging to find savings in this budget.
“This is a significant cost savings without kicking the can too further down the road to cost us more significant challenges down the way,” Ceccacci said.
Mayor Darrin Canniff said the motion was a reasonable reduction to the budget that will help to lower the proposed budget increase.
The opening night is mostly an information night for councillors as they move forward in the budget deliberations.
After the first night of budget deliberations the proposed budget increase is at 5.58 per cent, down from the opening 6.35 per cent number.
The first scheduled night of budget deliberations on Wednesday was canceled due to a snowstorm that hit the area.
Budget deliberations will continue next week with meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre.
