Chair of Belleville’s Police Service Board, Jack Miller, stands before City Council to introduce Police Chief Mike Callaghan and his capital budget proposal. Dec. 1, 2020. (Photo by Trey Boivin)
By Trey Boivin
BELLEVILLE – Council approved a smaller 2021 capital police budget at Tuesday’s council budget meeting.
Belleville Police Service Board Chair Jack Miller said the capital budget was less than the last three years. In 2021, the police service is projected to spend $632,572 in its capital budget.
Since 2019, the Belleville Police Service’s capital budget has been much higher than usual because of the construction and the moving-in to the new police headquarters at 459 Sidney St.
Now that the move-in is complete, the capital budget is smaller than it has been for the past two years. It’s also 10% less than it was in 2018.
The breakdown of the 2021 budget is as follows,
- $101,053 for specialized equipment such as a traffic radar speed gun and SSD storage drives.
- $156,862 for information technology like a new transcription system and photo analyzing program.
- $322,273.70 in fleet purchases such as SUVs and other police vehicles.
- $15,384 in facility maintenance tools like ladders and new vacuums.
- $37,000 in furniture such as window coverings and a chemical storage unit.
The entire capital budget for the city of Belleville can be found here.
Some items in the police capital budget were redacted, Police Chief Mike Callaghan said in the meeting.
“You will notice in your budget that we have redacted some of the items that were identified The specific reason for that is the protection of the investigations that may be underway and the equipment that is specific to them and/or covert operations,” Callaghan said.
One of the items that aren’t redacted is a controversial prisoner restraint chair that falls under the specialized equipment category in the budget.
The $2,775 chair has garnered the nickname the “devil’s chair” and has raised the concerns of Belleville Peaceful Streets Network, a citizen-run advocacy group, according to an article by CBC
None of the councillors in attendance had any questions for Callaghan or Miller.
The Belleville Police Service capital budgets have been decreasing since 2019.
The Belleville capital police budgets since 2018 are
- 2018: $695,600
- 2019: $2,097,900
- 2020: $1,414,800
- 2021: $632,572
The entirety of Tuesday’s council meeting can be viewed on Belleville City Hall’s YouTube channel.
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