KEY POINTS:
Police officers are battling to get basic new equipment after a budgeting glitch left their bosses with less money than they thought.
The Weekend Herald has learned that police districts across the country have been told to trim their costs by 3 per cent after a funding over-allocation.
Some district bosses have been reluctant to sign off on purchases like leather gloves for handling criminals, wet-weather gear and gun oil for maintaining rifles.
Funding for training by specialist groups like Search and Rescue has been scaled back in some cases.
Police national headquarters argues overall funding to the districts has gone up substantially, and the subsequent adjustment to the budget should not have a significant impact on police work.
Craig Prior, of the Police Association, said the union had been forced to step in where equipment requests had been refused, to get decisions overturned.
Some it could not get overturned.
"Police provide an essential service and that service shouldn't be impaired simply because of financial constraints," Mr Prior said.
"There are health and safety issues for staff when it comes to cutting costs and penny-pinching in order to balance budgets."
The union would be very concerned if this was the way the force was headed, Mr Prior said.
Police's general manager of finance and planning, Bruce Simpson, said the police's total funding went up $59 million in the latest financial year.
Police districts received an increase of $9.7 million to cover rising costs for the likes of fuel and electricity, and "general inflationary pressures". At the end of the budgeting process, it was found that about $2.7 million needed to be clawed back from the districts.
"In an ideal world would I have wanted to do that? No," Mr Simpson said. "But we live with the money we have got, and the sort of reductions we are making there, in my view, should not be having significant service implications."
There would always be cases of new purchases being declined.
"I think the public would expect that we look carefully at every dollar we spend, and that is what we are doing."
National Party police spokesman Chester Borrows said it was concerning that the budgets were being squeezed when police officers' safety "is at a premium" after two deaths in the last three months.
"The Government has got to be very, very careful it doesn't expose police officers to risk when it's able to throw money around at less important things. "
Mr Simpson said funding reserves were kept by police for districts to tap into if necessary.
Why the cuts?
* Police funding for 2008 financial year rose $59 million, with an extra $9.7 million to NZ's 12 police districts.
* At the end of the budget process, it was discovered too much had been allocated and about $2.7 million had to be taken back off the districts.
* Districts have been asked to reduce costs by 3 per cent to cover the difference.