| Police spared budget cuts | | Print | |
| Written by Richard Green/richard@fptci.com | |||
| Thursday, 28 April 2011 10:47 | |||
 While other government departments suffered budget cuts between 10-30 percent, police operations will get the same amount of money that was spent last year — nearly $16 million. “Generally in the budget, all departments would have had their budgets reduced by a minimum of 10 percent,” Permanent Secretary for Finance Delton Jones said of the interim government’s target for spending reductions to balance the budget. “Reflecting the importance of security and the police budget, that was the only budget that was actually kept in line with the outturn for last year,” Jones said. Police operations were budgeted $18 million in the last fiscal year, $4 million more than the year before. They also got a financial boost from the U.K. in a grant that also paid for the Special Investigation and Prosecution Team (SIPT) and the Civil Recovery Unit last year. New Police Commissioner Colin Farquhar has said that he thought the amount proposed for this year’s budget would be satisfactory, but he also is lobbying to return to police the 10-percent salary cut they took with all other civil servants last year. Underpaying officers can lead to problems with morale and the potential for corruption, he said. The police budget is expected to represent about 10 percent of all government spending this year at about $15.7 million for police, its drug unit and the marine branch. In addition, accounting for more than $10 million — or about 6 percent of the new budget — is funding for the SIPT, Jones said. The team was assembled under the lead of respected prosecutor Helen Garlick to investigate allegations of corruption by government officials and others made in a Sir Robin Auld’s Commission of Inquiry in early 2009. While no charges have been made, Garlick has estimated that the first cases would come late this summer, and various government officials have said she is on course. The inquiry made numerous allegations against former Premier Michael Misick and several of his former ministers, but Garlick has said “it would be a great mistake to think we are only concerned with allegations of corruption, or misconduct with one section of political life here.” She said investigations have led to five or six other countries, including the U.S., and cover political activity over the last 10 years. File Photo: Police Commissioner Colin Farquhar
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