On Thursday, Council will hear a report from City staff on a recent round of public input on the budget, indicating that:
- the number one topic addressed was the proposed Police budget increase; and,
- 83% were opposed to the Police budget increase.
In October, the majority of Council directed staff to invite the public to provide input on the Draft Budget. Many thanks to those who took the time to weigh in; I appreciate your interest in Council’s work and the City’s governance. Some of the individual emails show a lot of reflection and careful analysis.
Here is a link to the survey results.
What will the 83% opposed mean for the proposed Police budget increase? It depends…
The nature of the recent data
One factor to consider is the nature of this data. Prior to this round of input, Council had already received a significant amount of public input. That earlier round of input included a scientifically valid, representative survey done by Ipsos, as well as qualitative information. You can read it; there are four reports and a presentation here.
The more-recent round of public input was done by self-selection (anyone who wants to give their opinion can do so – like a Facebook survey). The numbers in these results are not representative of the population of Victoria; they are only representative of the people who chose to write in. Everyone on Council knows this, and knew this before giving the direction in October.
The legacy police budget process
Another thing that everyone on Council knows is that Council doesn’t really have the final say on Police budgets. The City pays for the police budget, but doesn’t really set the amount.
City councils do discuss police budgets and vote on them, and the media dutifully covers those conversations. This performance does raise ire (on both sides) and attract audiences to the advertising carried in the media. Unfortunately, it also suggests to the public that city councils actually make the decisions.
However, the Police Act – adopted decades ago – determines how police budgets really get approved. Section 27 says that if a council doesn’t approve a proposed budget then the provincial Director of Police Services decides. The Director decisions are generally in favour of police boards’ budgets, not city councils.* And so council members voting on the police budget really have two choices under this legacy process – (1) approve the board’s budget and pay it, or (2) don’t approve it, face a costly appeal, and likely end up paying the board’s budget anyway.
It’s hard to see any major value being added by council being included in this process. Council has already advised the police board what our policing priorities are (generally boots on the street, and a few others) before the police board presents their budget. And the police also seek opinions from the public. The police board then works with the police department to create the budget and is the direct line for supervision and accountability. By the time it gets to Council, the Police Board generally say that every item in the budget is necessary.
We all – provincial government, city councils, police boards and departments – inherited this legacy budget process. I’d love to see it changed to eliminate council’s middleman role. But right now it’s what we have.
So will that 83% opposition to the police budget increase make a difference?
The non-representative nature of the second round of input means most council members won’t put much weight on it.
And the performative nature of the legacy police budget approval process means that if council members did put weight on the recent round of input, it might not matter anyway.
So will that 83% opposition make a difference?
You decide.
* I’ve requested the decisions and will update this if and when received.