By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
In spite of Mayor Lucas Cleveland’s directive limiting the 2026 increase in the Cobourg Police Service budget to 4%, the Cobourg Police Services Board has passed (and will send to the mayor’s budget committee) a draft budget with a 20.5% increase (rising by $1.6-million).
The increase was debated at last week’s board finance committee meeting, where Chief Paul VandeGraaf labelled the directive “performative.” The chief repeatedly stated that the police budget is bound by the terms of the Community Safety Policing Act (and that sticking to such a small increase would not reflect the true cost of policing).
Though they decided to have a special meeting in November, they opted instead for a question period at this week’s meeting. Two members of the public took the opportunity to address the budget, one of them – Esther Schroeder – a member of the mayor’s community-led budget task force.
Schroeder (who is also a police board finance committee member) presented an report on eight items she felt had potential to save a total of $1.364-million, bringing the budget increase down to a mere 3.1%. In the end, however, Chief VandeGraaf addressed each one and explained that none of them was possible, from the $5,000 for meals and refreshments to $858,000 for court services.
In the end, the chief said, the duties and levels of service the police give are rarely discretionary. Court sits as long as it sits, for instance – and when it’s adjourned, the paperwork and the prisoner escort are still left to be done. Legislation is in place dictating levels of staffing for everything from prisoner escort to court sittings. As for the work of preparing briefs, he added, an officer engaged in that work is not engaged in things like being out on patrol.
Ultimately, the level of police service provided reflects what people need to feel safe and are demanding.
Board chair Adam Bureau noted the circumstances in which the town has found itself in recent years.
“Since the encampment, the extra homelessness, the mental health, the drug addiction we have, we have heard repeatedly from the public – ‘we need more police, we need more police, we need more arrests,’” Bureau said.
“My question is, how much of this budget relates to the homeless, mental health and addiction problems that we have in Cobourg as well as 310 (the county’s homeless shelter),” he asked.
VandeGraaf reiterated Schroeder’s comment that more police officers can’t fix homelessness as homelessness is not a crime. However, “it appears homelessness is, when nobody else has an answer, it falls to us. When a decision is made at the upper tier as to where a shelter will be or won’t be, it’s left for us to police.
“Our Safer Streets initiative is the result of people asking for more. It’s not me just adding more.”
For whatever reason, VandeGraaf said, Cobourg seems to be where the issues of homelessness, evictions and poverty intersect. He cited the July closing of the drop-in warming/cooling hub at 310 Division St. as an example – “people with nowhere to land. We wanted to make sure an encampment did not become another reality for this community.”
As a result of such issues, he estimated, “we are well over $200,000 in the last 12 months.”
Prepared by Esther Schroeder, Cobourg Police Services Board Finance Committee citizen volunteer
Potential savings Cobourg police budget estimate 2026
1. Wellness:
40k. Is that needed? Members have benefits already to use for their wellness
Potential savings: 40k
2. Special projects:
230k. Over 100 k of that for Venture13 Policetech Accelerator. These projects are most likely
not a necessity
Potential savings: 230k
3. Software maintenance & Information technology:
These 2 categories are now combined. They went up by 133k or 91% already in 2025. For 2026
up from 279k in 2025 to 344k, that’s another 65k or 23.3%
Potential savings: 55k if we budget 290k instead of 344k
4. Court security and 5. Court administration:
4. Court security:
Up from 1,115 M in 2025 to 1,754 M. That’s an increase of 639k or 57%
5. Court administration:
Up from 533k to 899k. That is an increase of 366k or 69%
Between the two, that’s an increase of over 1 M dollars or 61%
The chief’s explanation of judges sitting past 5 o’clock at least once a week these days does not
appear to be a sufficient explanation for such a drastic increase.
Potential savings:
If we budget 1.2 M for court security and 590k for court administration instead, that’s a total
increase of 147k between the two, or 9%. That would result in potential savings of 858k
Another consideration: Is there really no opportunity at all to get more money from the county,
the province or other municipalities within the county to put towards this cost? Explore
possible options.
6. Planned HR and support staff hires:
The planned HR position that is already in the budget, but if I remember correctly not hired yet,
as well as the other planned support staff position, I believe it was front desk, are they actually
critical or just a nice to have?
Potential savings if we don’t fill these positions: Unsure, approx. 170k (incl. benefits)
7. Cleaning allowance:
Up from 10k to 20k, 100% increase. 12k should suffice
Potential savings: 8k
8. Meals & refreshments:
Budget more than doubled in 2025 to 7.5k. Reduce to 4.5k
Potential savings: 3k
Total potential savings between all 8 points: 1,364,000
This would bring the 2026 budget estimate down from 9,451,089 to 8,087,089 and
equal a 3.1% increase over the 2025 budget of 7,843,277
