Montreal must stop underestimating police expenses and overestimating the quantity of tickets it will distribute, recommend Montreal municipal officials.
The Finance Committee of the Montreal city council recommended Friday the adoption of the Plante administration’s 2024 budget. The City plans total expenses of 7 billion and must therefore increase residential taxes by 4.9% on average.
The elected officials sitting on the Commission, however, highlighted “the overestimates contained in the budget” in terms of revenue “stemming from violations of municipal regulations and the Road Safety Code”, as well as “the underestimation” of the expenditures of the police and firefighters. In its report, the Commission calls on the administration to address these problems.
For several years, Montreal has missed its fine distribution targets and provides clearly insufficient amounts for its emergency services.
The year 2024 had not yet begun when Chief Dagher was already warning, at the end of November, that his overtime budget for next year was still likely to 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. »
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.
Earlier this week, the opposition released its own report on the budget. She proposed a lower tax increase and a reduction in the growth in expenses of all City services.
The Plante administration’s budget should be adopted next week.