The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) will hire more than a hundred police officers to occupy permanent positions next year, suggests the budget of the City of Montreal, which thus hopes to reduce its use of overtime and realize more revenue from issuing tickets.
The portion of the City’s budget devoted to public security will be approximately the same as last year, but on net, expenditures allocated to the Montreal police will increase by $33.8 million in 2024. A portion of this amount will go to the addition of 107 permanent positions as police officers within the SPVM, which thus intends to achieve by the end of 2024 its objective of hiring 225 police officers in two years to fight against armed violence.
This 4.3% increase in the SPVM budget, which will thus reach 821.5 million, was also necessary according to the City to meet the requirements of the new collective agreement for metropolitan police officers. This provides for an increase in the remuneration of metropolitan police officers of 20% over five years, significantly more than what the City had anticipated in its budget forecasts.
Less extra time
The City’s budget thus provides for expenditures in terms of remuneration at the SPVM of nearly 634 million next year, an increase of 35.5 million compared to the amount which was included in the 2023 budget. Actual expenditures in terms of However, the remuneration of the Montreal police in 2023 was 648 million, indicate the City’s budget documents, or 14 million more than the expenses planned in this regard in 2024.
However, the City is counting on the hiring of new police officers next year to reduce its use of overtime, which should, according to it, contribute to reducing its expenses related to the remuneration of police officers, indicated at a press conference on Wednesday the head of public security on the executive committee, Alain Vaillancourt.
The City also hopes that the addition of police officers to the SPVM will help increase the revenue it will earn from issuing fines and tickets to the population. These will reach 211.5 million, the City foresees, an increase of 1.2 million dollars compared to the revenues which had been planned for this purpose in the 2023 budget and of nearly 33 million compared to the actual amount that the SPVM will collect this way by the end of the year.
Fire prevention
The Montreal Fire Safety Service, for its part, will see its budget increase by 3.1 million, which will allow it to hire 33 fire prevention specialists, mobilized in particular to inspect buildings at risk. An announcement which comes eight months after the fatal fire which occurred on March 16 in a heritage building which housed several illegal short-term rental accommodations.
More details will follow.