Sarnia's Police Chief says the service is at a place where it can look ahead and plan for the long-term.
That is one of the reasons why the Sarnia Police Service (SPS) decided to draft a two-year budget.
The board approved its proposed 2026-2027 budget on Thursday, June 26.
It's the lowest budget presented in the last couple of years.
In 2026, the budget has a proposed increase of 6.5 per cent and in 2027 it's drafted at 5.28 per cent.
Derek Davis said over the last few years the service was dealing with crisis level issues that needed to be addressed.
"As we've dealt with those issues, we're now able to breathe a little bit over a longer period of time, so this is our first approach attempt to say we want to continue the trend through the board of having our budget approach at a sustainable level," he said.
According to Davis, the increase of the budget has been less and less since 2023.
He said having the lower increase is a good thing.
"Everything we've asked for has been a necessity. We have been very transparent in the public in what our needs our and what our issues and challenges are. Some of this has been the result of a culmination over many years of issues that have just grown, if you don't address the small things they grow into big things," he said.
Davis said he would like to continue doing a two-year budget.
He said there are some risks though looking ahead.
"Part of a lower budget is you're going to have less resources if something happens but risk is never eliminated it's only mitigated, so what we look to strike a balance of was what's an acceptable level of risk that we can reasonably project and that's what we looked at," Davis said.
The budget was also presented earlier this year.
During the last two years SPS introduced the budget in August and September.
Davis said the budget was introduced earlier because the service had the opportunity to look longer term.
"It also gives the City of Sarnia the budget as early as possible, which I think is helpful for their staff and their council for long-term planning and adding that 2027 also helps in their long-term planning, because they know they have a reasonable expectation where the police service will be in the following year," he said.
Next, the police board will submit the budget to the city.
From there staff and council can recommend the police service make further changes, or accept it as is during budget deliberations