Last week's announcement that serious crimes had increased by ten percent or more was both worrying and unsurprising.

What's worrying is that crime is likely to get worse, not better, this as the recession begins to bite.

In that context, it is worrying that the Police Budget has been trimmed by $2 million this year; this is the very time when spending on policing and security should be maintained or even increased.

For now, the plan seems to be to maintain Police staffing at its current levels, even though the amount set aside for salaries has been trimmed.

No doubt Home Affairs Minister Sen. David Burch will make clear how this will happen in the coming days and weeks, but for now, it does not make much sense.

Many people will remember that the United Bermuda Party government took a similar tack in the early 1990s when spending on the Police was cut as part of the general retrenchment in the last recession.

No one would disagree that that was an error – it led to police staffing levels being cut just as crime was increasing, and in some ways, the Police have never really recovered from the reductions in veteran officers that took place then.

The same mistake cannot be made this time, especially as the Island comes off a year in which all violent crimes increased, and when there is a demand for increased policing in almost all areas.

On the other hand, the Police surely cannot complain about working conditions and pay, which are now very good after the Supreme Court upheld the arbitration decision, and it is hard to disagree with Shadow Public Safety Minister Michael Dunkley when he urged Sen. Burch not to take the matter any further in what seems to be a lost legal cause.

Better to concentrate all minds on the very real crime and safety issues that are confronting the Island.

Paying the piper

No one likes to be told "I told you so", but Friday's Budget supports all of the criticisms that have been made and summarily rejected over the past few years.

Can there be any doubt that Bermuda's public finances are in much worse shape than they should be as the Island enters recession?

During the boom years, when spending could have been restrained and surplus funds could have been either put aside for a rainy day or used to reduce debt, the Progressive Labour Party spent and borrowed and spent some more, so that now, as the economy contracts and tax revenues fall, Bermuda is forced to dip into the Sinking Fund just to pay interest on the Island's debt and is having to use windfall money to pay for drugs rehabilitation programmes.

Finance Minister Paula Cox has justified the use of the Sinking Fund money by noting that other governments have done the same thing, including Singapore, which is releasing money from its $4.5 billion in reserves to help to fund a $20.5 billion stimulus package.

At least Singapore has $4.5 billion in reserves to spend. Outside of the Sinking Fund, Government has nothing, while the amount of money that the Island will still have to borrow will break its own rule that it will not borrow more than ten percent of gross domestic product.

It will be argued that these are unusual times, and that no one could have predicted how severe this economic downturn would be. But there were consistent warnings that Bermuda's economy was overheating and that costs were spiralling as a result.

And a prudent government would have prepared for difficult economic times – which always come – rather than giving the impression now of making policy on the fly.