The City of Kenora is grappling with the high cost of policing as it gets ready to begin budget deliberations.
CAO of the city Kyle Attanasio says the $2.35 million increase this year puts a huge strain on their budget.
“The impact of that from a property tax standpoint is a 7.6 percent property tax increase, levied throughout the entire city,” Attanasio pointed out in a press conference Friday afternoon.
“That is a 36.7 percent increase in our OPP bill between 2024 and 2025.”
He says they city is looking at a bill for OPP service of $8.78 million.
Mayor Andrew Poirier says many of the calls for service the OPP deal with are the result of services they don’t have any influence over.
“We have a provincial courthouse in our community, and we also have a jail. That draws people into our community for a variety of reasons, and that ends up as additional costs and calls for service. And again, we have data to back that up.”
Attanasio says the city will once again get a five percent rebate on their policing costs, that does little to offset the increase next year.
Increased costs are being blamed for the number of calls for service, as well a new contract for OPP officers and retro-active pay for the officers.
