The 2025 Sarnia Police Services draft budget proposes a 10.36 per cent increase.
Sarnia Police Chief Derek Davis said inflationary impacts were unavoidable this year including salaries, collective agreements and $125,000 for reserves, which account for 6.29 per cent of the proposed increase.
"The operational reality is workload is consistently increasing, emergencies are increasing, recidivism is increasing, all these pieces are here, we see it in the numbers and we have to responsibly budget to meet those demands," said Davis.
He said one of the other key pieces is Rainbow Park.
"The challenges around homelessness that we have to, as a police service, be increasingly prepared to address," said Davis. "I have yet to see any municipality that has a solution for this problem, that has solved this problem. I think this is more of a chronic issue and I think as a responsible organization what we have to do is be prepared to manage it better."
The draft budget includes plans to expand the Integrated Mobile Police and Crisis Team, also known as the IMPACT Unit with the addition of two officers.
"Already this year IMPACT alone, two officers and a sergeant, 1,006 individual encounters with homeless individuals, and 296 of those are unique individuals and of course addiction factors extremely heavily in a lot of the social issues we see here in the city," said Davis.
Also included in the $36.7 million document is the addition of a $500,000 contingency fund toward the development of a new police facility, approved in principle by the Police Services Board on Tuesday.
The Joint Facilities Project Team had recommended a multi-year, phased approach for a new headquarters at a new site.
Board Chair Paul Weirsma said the approved recommendations also include securing an architect to design a new facility.
The board did not approve a one-time $450,000 replenishment to the reserve fund, or the addition of four frontline police officers at a cost of $600,000.
The draft 2025 Sarnia Police Service budget will be sent to Sarnia City Council to be considered during 2025 budget deliberations.