{"id":952281,"date":"2026-10-30T20:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952281\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T20:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T20:04:09","slug":"ottawa-police-still-staring-at-deficit-near-22m-this-year-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952281\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa police still staring at deficit near $22M this year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The latest Ottawa police report into its expected 2026 budget expects a $21.8 million deficit, with overtime costs again taking up nearly half of that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The third-quarter report covering July, August and September will be tabled at an Ottawa police services board committee meeting on Friday, Nov. 6.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The anticipated shortfall changes little from the $21.6 million deficit projected about three months ago, and would be an improvement on the $28.9 deficit in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Deficits were around the $10 million range <a data-ylk=\"slk:at the start of this decade;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/ottawa\/overtime-project-costs-driving-ottawa-police-s-21-6m-deficit-for-2026-9.7299766\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">at the start of this decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Once again, overtime is a major factor. The report from the chief&#8217;s office says Ottawa police expect a $10-million pressure from overtime &#8220;to meet the needs of the organization and the community to ensure adequate and effective policing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Front-line policing accounts for the single greatest overtime pressure, followed by court security and the communications centre. Ottawa police paid out $11.2 million in overtime last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Other costs contributing to the deficit include $4.6 million for an unspecified landfill search that was part of a homicide investigation, and about $3 million for recruiting and onboarding new hires. Another $1 million is blamed on increased fuel costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Working toward balance<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The report said police are continuing their &#8220;spending restraint&#8221; plan started in February, which has saved millions of dollars by scaling back some overtime leaving some positions vacant, among other measures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That approach has saved the force about $9 million, while they continue to look for another $2.2 in savings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Police are also developing a long-range financial plan through 2036, and are planning an efficiency review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The police board&#8217;s finance and audit committee meeting is also expected to include an update on the 2027 budget timeline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The next city budget will be one of the first major tasks for Ottawa&#8217;s new city council once members are sworn in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest Ottawa police report into its expected 2026 budget expects a $21.8 million deficit, with overtime costs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-952281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}