Police board seeking steady funding

By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express

In order to continue improvements to community safety in Durham, police board chair Kevin Ashe is banking on consistent funding from the province.

Ashe, regional councillor for Pickering and the chair of the Durham Regional Police Services board, recently penned a letter to Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Sylvia Jones regarding the board’s desire to receive the same allocation of provincial funding as they did in 2018.

In his letter, Ashe noted during the summer of 2018, the board wrote on two occasions to Michael Tibollo, Jones’s predecessor, requesting to receive the same allocations in 2019 as the organization did in 2018, but Tibollo informed the board “the ministry was continuing to review the grants program.”

According to Ashe, the funding the region has received from the provincial government has helped with frontline police officers, court security, programs such as youth in policing, and anti-violence goals.

He says the funding has also helped support community safety goals for many years.

While Ashe states the board understands the fiscal challenges the provincial government faces, and “the importance of ensuring that taxxpayer dollars are invested appropriately to ensure the safety of communities,” he provides assurances in his letter the funding has helped to improve the safety and well being of the region.

Ashe strongly believes a reduction in funding would be detrimental to the safety of the community and put it at risk.