5 facts about York Regional Police's $348-million budget proposal for 2020

New police station serving Newmarket, Aurora and East Gwillimbury to be built on Harry Walker Parkway

Yorkregion.com
November 4, 2019
Jeremy Grimaldi

The police budget is always a massive one, recently topping $300 million.

Here are 5 take-aways from the 2020 proposed budget:

Approaching $350 million

Despite austerity being the message from Queen's Park, the total cost of policing in York Region continues to rise, this year by 4.17 per cent to $348 million. 85 per cent of that will be spent on salaries and benefits.

About 90 per cent will come from your pocketbook.

The budget will also see a new $26 million police station built by the end of 2021 to replace the current location on Newmarket's Prospect Street. It will sit at 429 Harry Walker Pky. and serve Aurora, Newmarket and East Gwillimbury.

Non-criminal service calls on rise

Police continue to face more calls for non-criminal issues (56 per cent) than criminal ones (44 per cent). At least part of this is due to a rise in the number of mental health calls, which jumped 25 per cent to a projected 4,665 over the past five years.

Shootings up, way up!

Shootings, alongside assaults and robberies, are on the rise. So far this year there've been 45 firearm discharges and shootings producing 157 shell casings, that’s a 489 per cent jump in five years. Assaults, meanwhile, reached 4,335 in 2018, a rise of 26 per cent from 2015 and robberies reached 3,086, a rise of 20 per cent.

Retiring cops

Between 2016 and 2023 York police have some 434 officers, many of them senior, eligible for retirement. In a bid to replace them, the budget will see 34 new staff hired (13 police and 21 civilian) at a cost of $1.8 million. 14 are intended to keep up with regional growth, 17 to deal with workload pressures and three to maintain service.

Marijuana costs millions

York police continue their work to prepare for the impact of cannabis legalization. That includes $5.5 million spent on the implementation of the act and 9,321 hours spent training officers.

To see the entire police budget document, click here. It will be presented to York Region council Dec. 12.