Despite projecting the need to hire more officers for the rank-and-file in 2015, Ottawa police Chief Charles Bordeleau said Monday the service will now take a "hard look" at whether it needs to grow, the same day a report naming the department one of the most understaffed in the country was released.

The comments came on the heels of Mayor Jim Watson's pledge on Friday to continue to cap tax increases if re-elected at a level that will further constrain police budgets.

"We were budgeting for approximately 23 new members," Bordeleau said. "What we're doing through the budget process is looking at whether we need to grow the police service or if we can absorb that growth to meet our target efficiencies."

The service has had a hiring freeze for the past five years but had been clear that come 2015, it would need additional officers beyond new hires that fill vacant positions. A change in the way it has to do business, given budget considerations, means police have to look at whether a civilian could do some of the work now done by an officer.

Bordeleau would not say that the service is understaffed, but did say that the work being done by civilians and not just sworn officers can't be ignored.

"We're delivering the service that our community expects and wants and we do so by not compromising officer safety," Bordeleau said.

Police forces in the national capital region are the third-most understaffed of all metropolitan areas in the country, according to a report by the Fraser Institute, a public policy think tank that focuses on the bottom line for taxpayers.

In 2011, according to the report's formula, which weighs crime rates against staffing levels, Ottawa and Gatineau ought to have had 162 officers per 100,000 people. The forces actually employed 141 officers per 100,000 people.

The report, Police and Crime Rates in Canada: A comparison of resources and outcomes, written by Livio Di Matteo, calls the services that are understaffed "efficient" — a buzzword well known in Ottawa thanks to recent efforts by the Ottawa Police Service to make the force just that.

Watson announced Friday his promise to keep tax hikes at two per cent or less ever year in the next term if he is reelected. The problem, however, is that police contracts continue to be negotiated in a province where the contracts awarded to other forces impact what Ottawa officers get, independent of whether the municipality can afford them, and in a country where the costs of policing, largely due to ballooning salaries, continue to rise.

Police have already committed to cutting $2.5 million from their operating costs for 2015.

For a mayor seeking re-election, the police budget can't amount to more than its fair share of city council concerns.

"Well, lookit, we have many groups — the police, housing, library — that rely on the city," Watson said Friday after making the announcement. "But the message that I perceive very loud and clear is: continue to control expenses, keep the tax-rate as close to inflation as possible, and we all have to learn to live within those means."

Bordeleau said the service will wait to see what the tax increases are before adjusting their plans.

Coun. Eli El-Chantiry, chair of the police services board, said the board has been working with the city's budget and continuing to deliver good service within the numbers. While the board hasn't physically approved new hires, it has approved looking at shaving costs to make room to hire more officers, or to free current officers from some of the time-consuming aspects of their jobs through ventures such as collision reporting centres.

The board stands firm that service to the public hasn't been compromised.

"If there's a way to find efficiencies without compromising the safety of the public and the officers, we're there to do it," El-Chantiry said. "That's our commitment."

Ottawa Police Association president Matt Skof said that commitment has put a strain on officers. Crime rates are on the decline, but the Ottawa force hasn't expanded, even though the population has increased.

"The platoons have been the same size for over a decade," Skof said.

Add to those capped platoon sizes an exponential increase in time and steps required to clear patrol calls, and declining crime rates can't make up for the fact that officers continue to have their resources stretched, Skof said.

"I'm not opposed to looking for efficiencies," Skof said. "But, what we're seeing already is a strain on the officers on the road."

The report, however, did highlight that there seems to be no discernible pattern as to why some forces are falling below predicted staffing levels or soaring above them.

"Substantial differences in staffing remain that are the result of local