The 2023 Sarnia Police Services draft budget proposes an 11.5 per cent increase, the highest ever in the service's history.
Police Chief Derek Davis said inflationary impacts were unavoidable this year, including salaries, increases to licensing, repairs and equipment and account for 8.8 per cent of the proposed increase.
"Those are just sunk costs that I need to work around," said Davis. "So whatever those agreements are, we honour them, and then if there's anything additional such as the extra asks that are in this budget, we have to go in front of the board and ask for the board's approval to move it forward."
He said the budget is broken down into three areas, uncontrollable costs, deferred needs and addressing community expectations.
"Specifically those are the expansion of our MHEART team, which is our mental health, in the field crisis response team, the implementation of an auxiliary unit-volunteer members of the community and lastly, we are looking at the need for a community outreach team."
Board Member Kelly Ash, who supported the budget, said it addresses community concerns raised during public town halls held earlier this fall.
"We're so far behind, we're playing catch up like we're going to lap ourselves pretty soon," said Ash. "Approving the budget was the only thing we could do. I wish we could have approved more but we really took out a lot of the wants, and what's in here is the needs."
Board Chair Mayor Mike Bradley said the substantial increase in the police budget is concerning for him.
"We're heading into a recession, we have high inflation, we have high interest rates, and I respect and have supported every police budget, but I also say there are some things that can wait," he said. "I certainly champion and believe in the mental health initiative, but there's a number of things I believe could come out and wait, because this budget really is setting up more spending next year."
Bradley and board member Dave Boushy, who called the 11.5 per cent increase frightening, voted against the draft $30.4 million dollar document.
Chief Derek Davis said he understands that some residents may find the proposed increase hard to swallow.
"If you're just looking at a number and not taking into context the service and the value that that number would provide, then perhaps yes some people will have a concern about the number," said Davis. "I would ask people to take a holistic approach to that and recognize that costs of policing go beyond just a budget cost. Victims have costs, financial costs, physical costs from injury. There are a lot of costs to doing police work, there's also a lot of costs to not doing police work."
The draft budget will go before city council during budget deliberations in January.