Halifax’s police and fire departments are being tasked with finding financial efficiencies as council struggles with finding ways to balance the books.
Budget discussions continued at Halifax City Hall on Thursday, and while no one was recommending job cuts, trimming down is required somewhere.
Halifax Regional Police Chief Don MacLean told council that trying to find areas in his budget to cut is keeping him up at night.
“In my mind, these are not recommendations. I do not recommend this, but these are options to meet the spirit of the motion,” he said.
Both police and Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency were asked by the municipality’s budget committee to find efficiencies in their services.
The police force highlighted civilian positions, force vacancies and non-compensation savings as potential avenues for savings.
Meanwhile, Halifax Fire listed position vacancies in management and culture, as well as possible savings in equipment.
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Neither service was prepared to cut front-line staff.
“Putting sworn officers in that position is not something I was prepared to do, not something I think we should do,” said Chief MacLean.
Acting Chief Dave Meldrum with Halifax Fire said while cuts to equipment were brought forward to the budget committee, he warned against going ahead with them.
“I examined our fire prevention division, our inspection services. I looked at our training services. There were opportunities there, but they would harm front-line service to an unacceptable extent,” said Chief Meldrum.
“There’s not a lot (of equipment) that we can say we can toss. I expect we would see severe decreases in the training provided to our specialty teams such as hazardous materials response and technical rescue, for one.”
Councillors only passed the recommendation to streamline management for Halifax Fire and to not fill management vacancies and non-compensation savings for police.
But councillors admitted it’s a tough decision.
“We know that they don’t want to implement any of those things, but we try to listen to what’s reasonable, given the situation we’re in,” said Coun. Laura White, who represents District 7.
District 6 Coun. Tony Mancini said he felt the committee “landed in a good place.”
“We protected some positions, we protected things like support and equipment for police and both for fire, so I think it was a very good discussion and we landed in a good place,” he said.
“I’m very confident that our municipality stays a very safe place to live and work.”
Debate around the municipal budget is expected to continue next week.
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