Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s police commission has approved a 4.8 per cent increase in the force’s budget for the coming year.

Deputy Mayor Glenn Paruch, who chairs the commission, said the extra spending will mostly cover contractual wage increases and allow the department to hire more staff and buy new equipment.

“Overall, it’s a keep-the-lights-on budget,” he said after Thursday’s police commission meeting. “There’s nothing that I saw that was alarming or really raised too many questions.

“You can see from what was presented here today that it’s pretty skimpy.”

The draft budget still has to be approved by council, which could happen next month.

Out of the 4.8 per cent increase, 3.8 per cent of that is for an additional $1.1 million in wages and benefits.

Another $500,000 will cover operational items, bringing the total budget request to $35.6 million in the coming fiscal year.

Paruch said the force is spending on needs, not wants, and Acting Chief Stephen MacKinnon called it a “lean” budget.

The force expects to hire 12 new officers this year and is hiring three civilians to handle the additional work expected with the implementation of body-worn and street surveillance cameras.

“A piece to that is monitoring and taking the data, evidence management, from those body-worn cameras and downloading it and sending it to the Crown’s office for prosecution,” MacKinnon said.

Damaged vehicle replacements

The budget also includes additional uniforms for the new officers and two new vehicles to replace ones damaged in crashes.

“I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that we’re really down to a last vehicle or having no vehicles left … and that’s something I really want to take into account going into this budget, to make sure we have a full amount of vehicles so we don’t have to double up officers,” MacKinnon said.

Four vehicles were damaged last year after striking deer. They were replaced by insurance, but vehicles are on the road constantly and some always get damaged during bad weather or while on emergency calls, MacKinnon said.

The budget does not include any increase in fuel costs, despite the increased pump prices since the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

No increase for fuel costs

None of the commissioners asked about that during the meeting, but Paruch said he raised it with the acting chief ahead of time.

The department budgets $500,000 for gas and diesel annually.

MacKinnon said fuel prices increased during the last fiscal year and analysis has shown fluctuations over the years that eventually even out.

Police are projecting the current budget will come in about $300,000 under the total approved to the end of March.

“I’m very comfortable in the dollars that we’ve put forward today,” MacKinnon said.

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