The Hamilton Police Services Board voted to reduce the 2026 police tax-funded budget increase to 6.81 per cent and has now approved the budget to go before City Council’s General Issues Committee on Jan. 27.
However, the $1.25 million decrease in the tax-funded budget, from the previous 7.37 per cent increase ($240.2 million) to a 6.81 per cent increase ($239 million), was not enough for Downtown Hamilton Councillor Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2) or Council-appointed citizen board member Dr. Anjali Menezes.
Both Kroetsch and Menezes voted against the police budget altogether.
It should be noted that Kroetsch has tweeted multiple times in support of defunding the police and also supported a group called Defund HPS, which was led by former Member of Provincial Parliament Sarah Jama.
Defund HPS called for an immediate 50 per cent reduction to the HPS budget.
Their protests also went further, calling for the police to be “abolished and dismantled.”
A recent public opinion survey found that Downtown Hamilton, which includes Kroetsch’s ward, is the area in the city that Hamiltonians find the least safe.
Menezes is a family physician who specializes in anti-racism and has a background in activism.
All other members of the Police Services Board, including Councillors Esther Pauls (Ward 7 – Central Mountain) and Mike Spadafora (Ward 14 – West Mountain), and provincial appointees Shaun Padulo and Robin St. Jean, voted in favour of the police budget.
It should be noted that the third provincial appointee, Don Robertson, chaired the meeting and thus did not appear to vote on the budget.
In debate on the budget, Kroetsch argued that “increases to the police budget do not necessarily reduce crime.”
“They just don’t,” he added, citing unnamed “research.”
Kroetsch added that he wants the city to invest in a Community Crisis Response Unit that would be a service to respond to specific 911 calls currently handled by police.
Spadafora responded, “If we ever get to an area where we have a service that can provide strictly those mental health and those sort of prevention services, I think that you will find that a lot of those services will still want someone from the police service with them.”
St. Jean said that he believes the increase in the police budget is too low.
“I think we need to be increasing the budget,” he said.
“There’s not enough police on the streets, we need to see our officers out there,” he added.
At the meeting, Kroetsch and Menezes brought forward a motion to trim the police tax-funded budget ask by $1.21 million, specifically citing that police should cut their cable TV subscriptions, advertising budget, in-cell biometric sensors, Ceremonial Units, and Mounted Unit.
That motion was voted down 2-4.
Spadafora explained his opposition, saying that he was “not comfortable” telling Chief Bergen specifically where to make cuts to the budget.
Instead, Spadafora brought forward his own motion to decrease the police tax-funded budget ask by $1.25 million and to have the Board direct Chief Bergen to identify the appropriate allocations to meet that target.
That motion passed, and then the budget was passed as a whole.
Bergen said that Hamilton Police “have been very much alert and very much aware of the impact that policing has on our taxpayer, but we also have a responsibility to provide adequate and effective policing, and beyond that is we have the responsibilities to provide crime prevention, law enforcement, assisting victims, public order, emergency response, all in an environment that has many, many challenges.”
Bergen explained that 4.2 percentage points of the budget increase is needed to sustain existing services, such as paying officers according to their collective agreements.
Other parts of the increase will go towards creating a new Intimate Partner Violence Unit with 20 officers, expanding the Core Patrol model, hiring 13 more officers to keep up with population growth, and investing in new technology such as body-worn cameras.
The Hamilton Police Services Budget Committee originally started with a $245 million net operating budget ($21.3 million or 9.48 per cent increase compared to 2025) when they met for the first time on Sept. 14, but that was already reduced twice before the Hamilton Police Services Board meeting.
Details on those reductions can be found here.
It remains to be seen if any Councillors, including Kroetsch, will bring forward additional motions on Jan. 27 in an attempt to trim the police budget further.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
