A consultant has completed a review of the operations of the Owen Sound Police Service and identified potential cost savings, but many of the report's findings were disputed in an internal analysis presented by the police chief to city council last night.
Levack Management Consulting's service review identified the potential for up to $560,000 in savings in the Owen Sound Police Service through various structural/operational changes and reduced service levels.
But, Owen Sound Police Chief Craig Ambrose told councillors Monday many of the changes identified for cost savings weren't feasible or would in fact raise the police budget.
The vast disconnect between the consultant's service review and the Owen Sound Police Service's analysis of recommendations was highlighted in part of Ambrose's presentation to council. It showed 11 recommendations the consultant estimated would create cost savings of $131,000 — such as reducing platoon staffing at less busy times, having officers type their own reports and cutting storefront hours — while the internal analysis found the result would actually be added expenses of over $122,500.
In all, Levack’s organizational review made 22 recommendations and among them were structural or operational changes that would result in estimated cost savings of $225,000.
An additional $335,000 in costs incurred for services in the Owen Sound Police Service were identified that would not be provided by OPP or directly impact the city. Those include services such as community programs, by-law, store-front hours and group benefit cost-sharing.
Police Chief Ambrose told councillors not all of the recommendations can be implemented due to various reasons such as: the requirement of collective bargaining, the loss of revenue, violation of The Police Services Act and decreased efficiency.
Ambrose says because of this, the savings reported by the consultant cannot be achieved.
“There were some areas where we've implemented changes and we've saved money,” Ambrose explains. “But there are other areas where there are recommended changes that didn't have an associated cost with it … and, obviously, those costs offset the savings.”
Levack Management Consulting was retained to undertake the Owen Sound Police review after the Ontario Provincial Police costing process in 2017 in which city council opted to maintain its municipal force.
Council directed the police services board to perform a service review to find $1-million in savings as the OPP proposal was projected to be slightly lower over 10 years — $82.9-million compared to $84.7-million — than continuing with Owen Sound Police.
Coun. John Tamming says he is “massively” disappointed the Owen Sound Police Services Board could not identify any areas for meaningful cost reductions.
“They were asked to come up with some budget suggestions to streamline (and reduce) the police budget by at least hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Tamming says. “That didn't happen. And I think the citizens of this town were not well served by the report we heard.”
Mayor Ian Boddy says unless the specific police services to the community are cut, they probably aren't going to be able to do better (from a budget standpoint).
“Am I happy with it? No. I'd love to be able to cut more,” Boddy says. “But, in this time when we're dealing with some opioid issues, we're dealing with mental health issues, I don't see where we're going to cut services in our city.”
Ambrose notes the consultant's review concluded the Owen Sound Police Service is an efficiently managed organization that provides adequate and effective policing to the city despite two primary challenges it faces: a high number of complex mental health calls for service and the increased population being serviced by the force as the city is a regional hub.
Council passed a motion to have another report by the Police Chief with additional analysis brought back for further discussion at its July meeting.