Belleville Police Chief Ron Gignac gives a presentation to the Police Services Board about the need to hire new officers, on September 28, 2017. (Photo: David Foot / Quinte News)
The Belleville Police Services Board is recommending that council take measures to address the city’s police staffing issues.
The board approved a presentation from Chief Ron Gignac Thursday, to hire two new officers in December to start at the Ontario Police College in January, along with a civilian IT specialist.
The chief tells Quinte News the new bodies are much needed.
Gignac noted that in 1994, the police force in Belleville had a uniformed complement of 80 officers and despite rapid population growth and added police responsibilities, the uniformed staff has only grown by eight officers since then.
The City of Belleville is currently below the provincial police staffing average of 96 sworn officers per 50,000 people and the chief wants to get closer to that number.
The chief says officers responded to more than 57,700 incidents last year alone, which doesn’t include the thousands of traffic stops.
He also says things like the legalization of marijuana, increases in cyber crimes and spikes in mental health calls, are putting a strain on the police force at its current staffing level.
Gignac says one of the new officers would join the Traffic Enforcement Unit, increasing that to four and the other hire would allow for the creation of a new spot in the Criminal Investigations Branch.
The police board also referred the hiring of two temporary officers, to fill four voids left by officers on leave, to budget discussions in the spring.
Those officers would eventually become full time through attrition.
As far as the cost of adding new officers goes, Gignac says there shouldn’t be an issue as the $492,522 to add those salaries can be covered by $649,428 already budgeted for staffing.
