Victoria Police say “recoverable” overtime costs for monitoring protests skyrocketed in 2024 compared to 2023, as did the number of protests they monitored for safety purposes.
In 2023, VicPD monitored 71 demonstrations throughout the year. In 2024, that number nearly doubled to 130.
The total cost of monitoring these events is still being tallied, but from Jan. 1 to Oct. 18, 2024 VicPD spent nearly $1.5 million on “overtime expenditures centralized,” which covers protest costs and some “emergency responses.”
That’s up more than $1 million compared to what was seen during the first 10 months of 2023, when VicPD spent $494,100 on the same costs.
This year, VicPD budgeted $643,990 for “overtime expenditures centralized,” meaning the first 10 months of 2024 blew past that total by 178.5 per cent – or an additional $505,658 – of its budget for the entire year, according to VicPD’s November report to the Victoria and Esquimalt Police Board.
https://cheknews.ca/...otests-1233222/
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 January 2025 - 08:03 PM.