Less spent on lawmakers’, courts security
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service will get a boost of more than $3 million in the spending plan being contemplated by the Legislative Assembly, if the proposal is passed with no changes made to the police budget.
Most notably, the proposal seeks to restore funding for police street patrols and community activities that was slashed in the current year’s budget by more than $3 million, according to financial records.
In the 2009/10 budget year, the ‘police services’ allotment, including patrols, community events, developing neighbourhood watches and the like, was estimated at $16.5 million. Estimates for the year ending 30 June, 2011, put that expenditure at $12.7 million.
The 2011/12 spending seeks to restore some of that funding, to just more than $15 million.
The upcoming budget calls for an increase in patrols of between 13,000 and 14,000 hours for the year, or between 250 and 270 extra hours per week. Officers are also budgeted to spend more time at community events, school programmes and assisting victims.
Less money has been budgeted for police security services, which include personal security for government members, security for law courts, security for official delegates and security for money transfers.
That budget has been reduced from an estimated $2.2 million in the current year, to $1.76 million in the new spending plan, a drop of about $440,000.
The police budget allotment for investigating and detecting crime has also been partially restored from a $500,000 cut it received in the 2010/11 budget. Lawmakers propose to add about $120,000 to that service in the upcoming year.
Funding for marine patrols has stayed about the same, but a large budget boost has gone for the RCIPS Air Support Unit. Funding for the police helicopter is expected to jump from about $900,000 this year to nearly $1.8 million in 2011/12.
Budget documents reveal that the police helicopter unit spent between 283 and 313 hours aloft in the last 12 months. The police hope to increase that to 380-420 hours in the next year.
Not all funding is increasing for the police. The amount spent on serving warrants for the courts will drop by more than $200,000 in the upcoming year. The spending includes processing of police, immigration and customs officers’ prisoners in local lock-ups.
Police projects
There aren’t many major police projects in the upcoming budget, but one major accomplishment – expected to occur by August or September – is the completion of the marine base in Newlands. Construction started in 2007 and some $500,000 remains to be spent to wrap things up.
An additional $800,000 is budgeted for the installation of Cayman’s first closed-circuit television public monitoring system. Cameras have just started being installed in the George Town area in recent weeks.
A law to govern the use of those cameras, the Public Surveillance Law, is also proposed to come before the Legislative Assembly within the next year, according to budget documents.
The government has budgeted about $3 million for continued work on a new juvenile detention centre in George Town, which is part of an effort to comply with constitutional requirements to separate adult and juvenile offenders. The country is legally mandated to meet those requirements under Cayman’s Bill of Rights by November 2013.
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