If councillors want more police on Hamilton streets, chief says they need to support 6.8% budget increase

Hamilton's elected officials appear poised to support police's 6.8 per cent budget increase after Chief Frank Bergen made his pitch to the budget committee Tuesday.

Bergen said the $239 million operating and capital budget is necessary if councillors want to see a greater police officer presence in their wards focused on proactive rather than reactive work.

"Otherwise I will continue to have black and whites going back and forth to call, to call, to call," the chief said, referring to patrol vehicles.

Compared to five years ago, Hamilton police are responding to 30 per cent more calls, he said. Situations officers are sent to also tend to be more complex and take more time to address, he added.

The proposed budget would see the creation of an intimate partner violence unit, with 20 detectives taking over investigations and freeing up patrol officers, said Bergen.

It would also enable police to hire 13 more officers to keep up with population growth, as well as expand its core patrol model to other divisions, going from eight to 24 officers.

The budget committee is currently hearing requests from different city departments, but aren't expected to begin making decisions until next month.

Funding police is usually the largest portion of the city’s budget. The police budget increased by 8.41 per cent in 2024, and 5.7 per cent in 2025.

On Tuesday, neither the mayor nor most of the councillors appeared to take issue with what police were proposing for 2026.

Council's most vocal critic of police spending, Cameron Kroetsch, said this year's process was the "most surprising" this term of council.

He's a Ward 2 councillor and member of the police service board.

He noted that two fellow councillors and service board members, Esther Pauls and Mike Spadafora, successfully got police to reduce its proposed budget by millions of dollars in November before it came to council.

He voted against the budget then, but said on Tuesday he appreciated their efforts.

And changes he'd advocated for over years — to make the police budget process more transparent and understandable — were also incorporated into the 2026 process.