A plan to hire 20 new firefighters and four new Mounties generated the most sparks among city councillors at the unveiling of Burnaby’s 2020 budget last week.
The proposed $812,441,500 financial plan includes $128,232,200 in spending on public safety and community services – the biggest slice of the pie.
Coun. Colleen Jordan said she didn’t like the idea that the budget included plans to pay for new public safety positions out of the city’s “rainy day” funds, its operational and stabilization reserves.
She said the jobs should be included in the budget’s base funding, a move she said would likely mean a bigger, 4.5% tax increase instead of the 3.5% increase included in the budget.
“The question we have to ask ourselves is how are we going to pay for them next year because we cannot continue to use reserves year after year after year for funding what are base, permanent, full-time positions,” Jordan said.
Jordan also said she was “totally opposed” to a plan to spend $880,000 on emergency medical responder training for firefighters because medical calls to the fire department had decrease in 2018 and 2019, and the provincial government was increasing ambulance service.
Pointing to the extensive spending on the fire department – which includes plans for 20 new firefighters and six other new staff – Jordan expressed frustration that a comprehensive review of the fire department promised by the end of 2019 had not been completed before the budget presentation.
“Where’s the report?” Jordan asked. “Where’s the priorities? Where’s the recommendations? I just don’t understand how we could possibly make those recommendations and go out and begin to hire people into those positions when we haven’t even seen the report and when the public hasn’t had an opportunity to see that report.”
Public safety director Dave Critchley acknowledged the report had been promised before the end of last year but explained consultants working on it had fallen ill and been unable to complete it on time.
He promised it would be finalized by the end of the week and brought to mayor and council “appropriately.”
(On Friday, Critchley told the NOW he had received a draft and the final report would be going out to council “in the coming weeks.”)
Jordan also took aim at the plan to hire four more Mounties.
She said that, in the last two years, the city has agreed to fund 20 new officers but 14 of those RCMP members have yet to be delivered.
“That’s half a million dollars, and we don’t know whether the 14 that are on order would have made a difference that maybe we wouldn’t have needed the extra four this year,” Jordan said.
But that information is out of date, according to Chief Supt. Deanne Burleigh, who told the NOW 16 of the 20 officers are already working in Burnaby, and the remaining four are expected to arrive in the coming months.
Three other councillors spoke in support of the proposed budget.
Coun. Sav Dhaliwal said policing was the last area the city should be falling behind the curve on.
He also noted it’s not unusual for the city to use “bridge funding” to pay for new positions before working them into the base budget.
As for the fire service, Coun. Pietro Calendino said that department “obviously had been suffering for the last 10 years, with no increases in staffing whatsoever.”
(Calendino had been chair of the public safety committee and its predecessor, the community policing committee, for at least a decade until being replaced shortly after Mayor Mike Hurley was elected in 2018.)
Coun. Joe Keithley agreed the fire department had suffered for the last decade under all-Burnaby Citizens Association rule.
“There’s been 10 years of neglect of the fire department by city council here in Burnaby, 10 years of not adding any firefighters when they’re supposed to be adding firefighters,” he said. “The city has grown – taller buildings, more people – so we’re playing catch-up now with the fire department and with other areas, so to me this makes sense.”
The public will have a chance to provide input on the proposed financial plan before it returns to mayor and council on April 27.
