2012 city budget
 

talks already under way - police want more increases - will council cow once again?

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...-hold-the-line

The Police will get what they want, the City can't say no. The City will have to appeal it through the Ontario Police Commission and of course the Police will win.

Agreed. Knowing this, the City should maybe just make the HPS budget line an add-on to the budget: Build their balanced zero-increase budget and let taxpayers know that policing premiums necessitated a tax increase.

I think the chief needs to go. If he can't craft a fiscally responsible budget, find someone who can.

Toronto is having about the same problem. Personally I believe that police services are just being far too greedy with their funding requests. I believe that a huge chunk of Hamilton's new budget has to do with ACTION team, mounted unit and new car purchases, rather than maintaining service levels. Seems like somewhat frivolous spending to me.

Seems that every time there is a police budget issue, we get a compelling news item:


One-Year Spike In Violent Crime (Hamilton Spectator, Oct 17, 2011)

"The number of violent crimes in Hamilton increased by 4 per cent in 2010, over 2009, but an overall downward trend from 2000 continues.

And while there was a small spike in the number of violent crimes, the severity of most violent crimes is decreasing, according the Statistics Canada crime severity index (CSI).

Despite the downward trend, Hamilton’s total crime severity index and violent crime severity index ratings are higher than the provincial and national averages, said Debbie Gifford, the service’s research analyst, during her presentation of crime statistics at the Hamilton police board meeting Monday night.

Hamilton’s violent CSI rating is 98.8. The Ontario average is 77.7 and the national average is 88.9.

Of the big 12 police services in Ontario, only Toronto and Windsor have higher crime severity index ratings, said Hamilton police Chief Glenn De Caire."


But if, as is claimed, Hamilton’s Violent Crime Severity Index rating is now 98.8, that appears to be an increase of more than 4%.

From Statistics Canada’s "Police-reported crime statistics", July 21, 2011:

Hamilton
Total Crime Severity Index: 70.9 (down 4% 2009-2010)
Violent Crime Severity Index: 80.9 (down 4% 2009-2010)

National
Total Crime Severity Index: 82.7 (down 6% 2009-2010)
Violent Crime Severity Index: 88.9 (down 6% 2009-2010)

Further calling the facts of the above story into question is the observation that “The volume and severity of crime fell or remained stable across virtually all census metropolitan areas (CMAs) in 2010, including Canada's 10 largest cities.... In 2010, three CMAs reported an increase in crime severity. St. John's had the largest increase, up 12%, followed by Greater Sudbury (+4%) and Peterborough (+3%).”

Crime happens. It's not worth busting the bank over new cars.

http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=1006

big increase in social assistance, but a drop in unemployment. Big decrease in building permits too, though the increase last year was probably due to developers getting their permit applications in before the hike in development charges.

That's the essential problem with any fixation on unemployment stats, acknowledged in part by Ms. Priel: There's no accompanying reporting of underemployment or mal-employment, or poorly paid work for that matter, though there would seem to be plenty of it out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Fb08-ROWI

From the proposed 2012 Budget....

City of Hamilton Website Redevelopment
$325,000

FINALLY!!

Holding Canada’s Cities to Account: An Assessment of Municipal Fiscal Management (PDF link):
http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/Backgrounder_145.pdf
"The Results: Surrey, British Columbia, and Markham and
London, Ontario, were the only municipalities
that met, at least partially, as many as five of our
six criteria. Markham and Surrey were unique in
having taken measures to report budgets on the
same accounting basis as their year-end financial
statements, while London partly met a number of
criteria of good budgeting practice.
At the other end of the spectrum, Hamilton
met none of these criteria of good budgets, and is
the only municipality to receive a failing grade.
Hamilton’s operating budget supported by
property taxes does not present gross expenditures
on a department-by-department basis in the main
budget document, meaning that answering a
straightforward question such as which activities
had the largest annual increase in expenditures
requires a detective exercise. Further, Hamilton
does not report municipal utility expenditures at
all in any of its main budget documents.
Brampton, Halifax, Sudbury, and Windsor met
only one criterion of good budget presentation,
and each received a “D."