This week, VicPD Chief Fiona Wilson spoke with Victoria city council to give a follow-up presentation on what the police department needs from the 2026 city budget.
In this meeting, VicPD offered to cut just over $598,000 from its budget request that would have gone towards hiring three new traffic officers.
All-in, the VicPD budget request is just over $86.75 million, representing a $7.75 million increase from the previous year’s budget.
Wilson noted that she recognizes that both the Victoria and Esquimalt councils are under a lot of pressure to bring down spending, and that VicPD’s budget request is high, but she insists that the funds are necessary.
“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we require these additional resources,” said Wilson.
She added that VicPD’s budget request would not be this high every year.
After the removal of the new traffic officers from the budget, the VicPD increase will represent 9.8% of the increases Victoria’s council are actively trying to whittle down.
Currently, Victorians are looking at a property tax hike of 10.4% this year, in large part due to the massive increase in VicPD’s budget.
Council wants to get the property tax increase down to between 7% and 9%. To get down to those levels, council will have to go back to the drawing board and consider what other programs, services and jobs to cut in order to make room for the inflated police request.
In 2015, VicPD’s budget in its entirety was around $48.9 million.
In just ten years, this figure has nearly doubled to over $86 million, while the estimated population has only increased by 20,000.
