- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,187
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Ottawa police have maxed out their office supply budget and the only way any one office item will be restocked is if it’s been depleted across the force.
The restrictions on purchasing have left some investigative units “borrowing” letter-sized paper from others and cutting legal paper to fill copier and printer trays, and even employees’ taking up donations of pens to send to patrol officers.
In what several officers have said is a “sad but true” state of affairs, the service has put a freeze on all purchasing of office supplies to hold the line on its supply budget for the year. The service’s supplies are purchased from Grand & Toy.
The force, for it’s part, would only say that it “recently” reached its $145,000 budget for office supplies in 2016. “Ottawa police will only purchase essential items (if/when no section/unit has the item in their inventory),” police said.
The force also said that supplies are typically ordered by administrative assistants in various units who “have a good system for checking with each other to ask if the essential item is available.”
One of those administrative assistants, however, took up a collection of pens to distribute among east division patrol officers.
The police union also donated some of its black-ink pens, purchased from a separate association budget, to front line officers.
Association president Matt Skof said that while detectives are sharing stories of having to shake toner cartridges before every printing job, the office supply budget, with no wiggle room, was one of the easy targets for the force to keep in check in this year’s budget, which was set before salaries have been negotiated for a year in which police already expect to overspend on overtime by more than $2 million.
Police board member Sandy Smallwood asked at last week’s board meeting whether the service’s continued plan to cut costs every year, in order to hire new officers while adhering to a cap on budget increases, was becoming more difficult after picking off the “low-hanging fruit.”
In an October financial report, the service said it still expected to have a balanced budget by the end of year.
syogaretnam@postmedia.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
查看原文...
The restrictions on purchasing have left some investigative units “borrowing” letter-sized paper from others and cutting legal paper to fill copier and printer trays, and even employees’ taking up donations of pens to send to patrol officers.
In what several officers have said is a “sad but true” state of affairs, the service has put a freeze on all purchasing of office supplies to hold the line on its supply budget for the year. The service’s supplies are purchased from Grand & Toy.
The force, for it’s part, would only say that it “recently” reached its $145,000 budget for office supplies in 2016. “Ottawa police will only purchase essential items (if/when no section/unit has the item in their inventory),” police said.
The force also said that supplies are typically ordered by administrative assistants in various units who “have a good system for checking with each other to ask if the essential item is available.”
One of those administrative assistants, however, took up a collection of pens to distribute among east division patrol officers.
The police union also donated some of its black-ink pens, purchased from a separate association budget, to front line officers.
Association president Matt Skof said that while detectives are sharing stories of having to shake toner cartridges before every printing job, the office supply budget, with no wiggle room, was one of the easy targets for the force to keep in check in this year’s budget, which was set before salaries have been negotiated for a year in which police already expect to overspend on overtime by more than $2 million.
Police board member Sandy Smallwood asked at last week’s board meeting whether the service’s continued plan to cut costs every year, in order to hire new officers while adhering to a cap on budget increases, was becoming more difficult after picking off the “low-hanging fruit.”
In an October financial report, the service said it still expected to have a balanced budget by the end of year.
syogaretnam@postmedia.com
twitter.com/shaaminiwhy
查看原文...
