Windsor Police Service (WPS) Board member Rino Bortolin got his wish, an in-depth breakdown of the city's policing budget showing more than $111.5-million in expenses for 2021.
"We as a police board and the finance committee may have seen those numbers, but I think it's important to share those with the public and be as transparent as possible," he says.
The document presented at Thursday's Windsor Police Service Board (WPSB) meeting breaks down the 2021 budget line-by-line and is available to the public. Previous police expenses were represented in far less detail as line items in the city's overall budget, according to Bortolin.
The Ward 3 councillor says he received numerous requests from residents for a more public document and the community got its wish.
"When we don't show everything in a transparent way it allows for rumours and innuendo to fester," he says. "I think what you'll see here, is that there really isn't much there to attack from a spending or financial oversight perspective."
Bortolin says the detailed expense report is a good way to build public trust.
"We're showing the community that we want to put everything out there as far as what we're spending our money on and what the priorities of WPS are when it comes to budgeting," he added.
Salaries and benefits take up the lion's share of the budget at just over $98.7-million.
Bortolin says that's not far from the norm for a service the size of Windsor's.
"Police are governed in a way where they can't strike, so they go to arbitration and often times we see police budgets rise because it's tied to all the salary increases that happen across services, across the province," he says.
The full document can be found in the latest agenda on the WPSB website.