Police have a proposed $2.25-million increase for their budget heading into next year.
The Police Board gave the draft budget the go-ahead, and Chief Sylvie Hauth explains it includes an extra $676,000 on top of their first estimate for 2020.
That addition covers overtime, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board costs, and the hiring of six new constables.
The Chief notes the police are currently in the black, but expects they will go into the red by the end of this year thanks to a recent homicide and attempted homicide.
Hauth says a number of outstanding items are going to catch up with them.
“Unfortunately you see that there are some great gaps in our current budget, in terms of overtime, for example, and your WSIB accounts.”
She points out their officers tend to rack up a lot of extra hours during busy investigations.
“You can appreciate [they attend] homicide scenes, we pay for [officers to attend post-mortems in Toronto], we have crime scene details, and our current guns and gangs situation sees annual overtime hours as well.”
