Montreal police officers worked twice as much overtime as planned in 2023, contributing to a significant budget overrun for the service.
The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) will have cost Montrealers 830 million by the end of the year. However, its budget voted by the municipal council for the year 2023 amounted to 788 million. This is at least the third consecutive year of overshooting.
“In my budget, currently what is planned [en heures supplémentaires] It’s 40 million. We exceeded by 42 million,” said Fady Dagher on Monday, on the sidelines of a presentation at city hall. The reason: the numerous vacant positions and the numerous sick leaves within the service. These push the absenteeism rate to 22% of the workforce.
“A lot of the activities we do are systemic overtime,” he continued. Surveillance of community gathering places linked to tensions in the Middle East has already cost 1.7 million in overtime, he pointed out.
The year 2024 has not yet started and Chief Dagher is already warning that his overtime budget for next year may still be insufficient. “I don’t see a miracle happening in 2024,” he said. “As long as recruitment does not come in, as long as I do not have enough recruits to come and cover everything, we will still be talking about a deficit in 2024. I hope it will be much less. I hope. »
In addition to the overtime, the conclusion of a new collective agreement with the police officers also weighed down the department’s finances. Conversely, actuarial adjustments to the pension plan allowed the SPVM to save 17 million compared to the planned budget.