Timmins Police's order for new marked Ford Interceptors has been cancelled due to COVID-19.
At the May police services board meeting, members heard from Timmins Police Chief John Gauthier about the decision.
“The COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly have a large impact on the financial status for the City of Timmins as a whole. In preparation, every department has been asked to look at their 2020 capital projects and prioritize for possible cuts and deferrals,” he said.
While decisions aren't supposed to be made until after the pandemic, Gauthier said it was important for him to look at the capital spending sooner than later. He and deputy chief Henry Dacosta made a quick decision to cancel the orders for the SUVs before they were constructed. It's a savings of about $143,000 in 2020.
"I can tell you that we did receive a little bit of push back but ultimately Ford understood the predicament that the COVID pandemic put on not only Timmins Police Service, but I think across Canada,” said Gauthier.
Because the vehicles aren't being updated, he said there might be a few minor additional costs for repairs to the older vehicles this year.
While he didn't recommend cutting anything else from the 2020 capital budget, he noted the department also saved about $10,000 on the umarked vehicles already purchased.
When the original 2020 budget was put together, Coun. Joe Campbell said a thorough job was done. He agrees that aside from the new vehicles, there's nothing he's comfortable removing right now.
“The significance of money spent on patrol vehicles is quite simply that police vehicles in general take a tremendous amount of wear and tear over the year,” said Rob Knox, who was chairing the meeting
“I trust that it’s not a decision taken lightly.”
