London, Ont. police one step closer to millions in funding for new officers

London, Ont. council is one step closer to approving a $4 million injection into the police service to hire 20 new officers.

During Tuesday’s strategic priorities and policy committee (SPPC), members agreed to receive a report for assessment growth funding for 20 business cases.

The most notable business case under consideration is the London Police Service requesting $3.95 million to hire 20 new officers and four new civilian staff.

As the city continues to grow, police say they require additional staff to help close an already large front-line staffing gap. The gap is making it difficult to respond to calls, resulting in complaints for poor service, say police.

During a police board meeting last spring, former police chief Steve Williams noted that public complaints about response times had risen nearly 300 per cent since 2019.

During Tuesday’s SPPC meeting, council members echoed the same sentiment of the police.

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“We cannot ignore the community safety aspect,” said deputy mayor Shawn Lewis.

“How fair is it for an employee to not feel safe at work because a police officer can’t respond? Or for somebody to not feel safe in their own home because a police officer can’t respond?”

Assessment growth funding comes from additional property taxes collected by the municipality from new and/or expanded homes and businesses. City hall has $14.1 million in available assessment growth funding, of which $12.7 million is 2023 assessment growth, and $1.33 million is left over from 2022.

Of the $14.1 million available, city staff allocated roughly $11.9 million toward 20 business cases.

As the SPPC includes all members, the vote to receive the report was 13-1, with Coun. Skylar Franke the lone no vote and Coun. Sam Trosow absent.

Franke said during the meeting she would not vote to receive the report because since many of the calls police are responding to are mental health-related, funding to help cover additional officers to handle the excess calls should be considered a provincial matter.

“I think we are covering provincial health care funding through sending police officers to deal with things we should be sending doctors, nurses and social workers to be dealing with,” said Franke during the meeting.

Multiple councillors agreed with Franke that more needs to be done from a mental health angle. However, those agreeing, like Lewis, added putting aside mental health-related calls, city police are still overwhelmed by the number of incidents requiring a response daily.

The entire assessment growth funding will be considered at a regular council meeting next month.