London's 4-year budget approved by council, including $672M boost for police

London city council has approved its budget for the next four years, including the controversialLondon policebudget request for anunprecedented $672 million, despite two councillors makinga final attempt to reduce the amount.

Coun. Corrine Rahmansuggested an $867,000 cut to funding for police vehicles and equipment, specifically new electric vehicles, which failed 7-8. This is aftercouncillors refused to hear Coun. Anna Hopkins's proposal for an overall five per cent reduction to the police budget.

In her rationale, Rahman said her motiondoes not impact the need for hiring more officers and that there are other levels of government the police can seek funding from.

The police budget includesthe hiring of 97 new officers,body-worn cameras, a training facility, and a new light-armoured vehicle.

No compromise on public safety say other councillors

During a lengthy debate ahead of the vote on Rahman's motion, while some councillors showedsupport,othersdisagreed with the proposed reduction sayingpublic safety is an important priority.

"I disagree completely with both amendments.I will not support any reduction to the resources required, becausewhen I knocked doors during the election, the number one issue was public safety," said Coun. Steve Lehman, who is also a member of the London Police Services Board.

"It's a situation where our resources in both staffing and equipment are terribly lacking, and I will not compromise public safety."

Other councillorspointed out that other business cases such as transit, libraries, and the conservation authority, were much more scrutinized than the police's business case and felt that it was unfair, they said.

"I wanted to keep trying to at least address thebudget cases and and see if there's an opportunity there for the police like we have done with all other agencies which is to askthem to scale back, reduce andpull numbers out," Hopkins told reporters during a break.

"We haven't even touched the police budget, which is over 50 per cent of the increase over the next four years, and residents of Ward 9 [Hopkins's ward] are going to feel those impacts."

London police's ask has largely dominated budget discussions, and has received pushback from some community memberswho say the funds should be directed to other sectors, such as libraries or the arts, which are at risk of funding cuts or no increase.

Taxpayers can also anticipateproperty tax hikes under the current proposalthat could amount to 33 per cent by 2027. You can calculate how much your property tax could rise under thecurrent budget proposal using CBC London's calculatorlocated here.

"I did get a lot of pushback. Ithink with the five per cent because it related to reducing that tax levy overall, and again, it wasn'teven considered to be heard," Hopkins said.

However Mayor Josh Morgan later told reporters this was because certain items in Hopkins's motion went against provincial legislation, which requires police services to have a 'next generation 911 centre' and a 'response to an active attacker incidents regulation'.

"I thinkthere's some frustration by councillors because on most of the budgets, we scrutinize them in this room witha few exceptions. With thepolice budget specifically, the legislation actually says council does not direct how the money is spent. It sets the global amount, but the Police Services board directs that," Morgan said.

"I think some councillors have found that frustrating because unlike significant other portions of the budget where we dig in quite deeply, the legislation doesn't actually assign that duty to us."

The final decision now lies with Morgan who can use his provincially legislated strong mayor powersto veto any changes that were made by council on Thursday's meeting. However, he indicated that he is unlikely to do so.