October 21, 2019 · 0 Comments
By Mike Baker
Police Chief Wayne Kalinski has this week sought to set the record straight following claims that the Orangeville Police Service (OPS) would not meet its projected revenue target for 2019.
Last week’s Citizen, reporting on a discussion at the Oct. 7 meeting of Orangeville Council, said Mayor Sandy Brown, Coun. Todd Taylor and a local resident, Noel Ramsay, voiced their concerns over one particular item in the current OPS budget.
Slated to come in at a net cost of $8.1 million, the 2019 budget projected record revenues of $1.946 million, approximately $570,000 of which was expected to come from the criminal record check service OPS provides to the community.
“I believe those criminal record check revenues are going to be in the $300,000 range, versus the $570,000 range that was projected,” said Mayor Brown.
Speaking to the Citizen on Tuesday, Chief Kalinski confirmed the police force would not make as much as it had hoped through its criminal record check service, but lay the blame at the feet of Orangeville Council.
“We expect to exceed the 2018 revenues of $257,289 but not reach the 2019 budgeted amount of $541,724. Our growth model and estimates were significantly impacted by the announcement of another OPP costing,” Chief Kalinski stated. “New opportunities are either waiting for the costing to be resolved, or have gone to another competitor. We consider this to be an anomaly in our business model and anticipate meeting or exceeding expectations in 2020.”
He added, “At the end of the day, it’s one line item in the budget, that’s all it is. We’re trending to be under budget for the year, so this, really, means nothing.”
Addressing a comment made by Mayor Brown about a criminal record check service soon to be offered online potentially impacting OPS’ ability to rely on revenues collected through its own service, Chief Kalinski noted that information wasn’t anything new.
“With respect to the future of criminal record checks, the bulk of the third party criminal record check business is already online and continues to show revenue growth across the entire industry,” Chief Kalinski stated.
Chief Kalinski plans to address this issue further at an upcoming Orangeville Police Services Board meeting, to be held on Oct. 31 at 9 a.m. at the Edelbrock Centre.