Stratford's municipal budget for 2025 is still up in the air, and a large chunk of that budget is going to be dedicated to the city's police force. How much exactly is still to be determined, as the city asked for a revised figure during deliberations last year. At the first police service board meeting for the new year, Mayor Martin Ritsma suggested a new target.
“The overall ask increase is over 16 percent,” said Ritsma. “We’ve been asked through council to revisit that, so I brought that back up tonight. The City has a budget meeting tomorrow and the chief will be there, and we are hoping to get that number down from over 16 percent to in the neighbourhood of 15 percent, which is still a big ask.”
The initial budget filed by Stratford Police came in just north of $16 million. The figure was met during the earlier budget discussions with some apprehension, followed up by a request from council to re-visit the submission with a few adjustments to help Stratford reduce the overall tax levy. Chief Greg Skinner says the budget process can be a back and forth exercise.
“The Police Service Board has the responsibility to set the budget and refer it to council,” he said. “Council is responsible for saying either yes and approving the budget or no and sending it back to the board to do further analysis with hopefully a reduction, which has happened here tonight.
Skinner says the local police want to be fiscally responsible while also not taking away from the level of service that residents expect from Stratford Police.
“The board was looking at opportunities to find some savings within the budget to lessen the impact of the increase,” he said. “We certainly want to be fiscally responsible but in the same token we have to make sure service delivery is met. We have legislative requirements to meet adequacy and effectiveness with respect to police service delivery in the communities we serve.”
Ritsma meanwhile said that although the ask is big, Stratford Police is without a doubt important to the community.
“The police ensure we have a safer community, and we are seeing budget increases across the province, with most of it tied to salary,” Ritsma said. “We are seeing that here with discussions around adding new officers. By adding more officers it will add a greater level of service.”
The mayor pointed to mental health challenges being more and more common, with 53 calls for service in December alone coming in the form of a mental health calls. Ritsma also pointed to a recent announcement by the province which provided nearly $80 million in funding to municipalities who are served by the OPP to help offset tax levy increases.
“That same financial support should come to municipalities that have their own municipal police force,” Ritsma said. “When we look at the police budget it is our largest operating expenditure from an outside board.”
Ritsma has spoken with Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae about the issue. He added that the Stratford Police force is one that municipalities (Perth South and St. Marys) are actually buying into because of the quality of service. Regarding that level of service, Skinner explained to the board that the department was hit hard by absentee rates in 2024.
“Other services have also struggled with their long-term absences, and we were lucky until 2024,” he said. “Last year hit us hard and we had some very serious incidents that happened, and everything takes its toll, so we’ve had absences that we’ve had to cover off. The board has been generous enough to approve additional staff in last year and this year's budget so we can maintain our service delivery levels to the community and maintain community and officer safety.”
Diving into the budget a little deeper, and it will be seen that staff salaries amount for a large chunk of the budget, something that was confirmed by Skinner.
“Up to 88 percent of the budget goes to salaries, wages, and benefits,” he said. “So you’re talking about 12 percent of the budget being for anything else. So things like: cars, uniforms, hydro, renovations to the police buildings, furniture, telecommunications, computers, all that stuff makes up the final 12 percent of the budget.”
Stratford’s Finance and Labour Relations Committee will be meeting Thursday at 1 p.m. in council chambers to continue budget discussions.
