POLL: Councillor calls for more budget openness from police

One city councillor wants to see the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) share more of its budget details with council ahead of the 2016 deliberations.

Coun. Ted Zurakowski made it known at Monday evening’s council meeting that he plans to introduce a motion to call on the police service to provide a more “robust” accounting of its financials. He will be bringing the motion forward formally during the next cycle of council.

“For years now, we’ve heard from the public and also members of council that we would like to see a more detailed accounting of the police service and their financials.

“And I don’t think we’re there yet, and I would like them to take another step further, like other major cities to provide some more information to at least members of council to review,” Zurakowski said after the meeting.

During the last budget cycle, Police Chief Troy Cooper presented an overview of the department’s budget to members of city council during the City’s budget deliberations. The department asked for a $495,180 increase to its budget for 2015, and initially, the committee approved it. The committee later agreed to pare $150,000 out of that increase. 

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While Cooper presented the overview to the budget committee, Coun. Martin Ring asked for the chief’s presentation notes to be included in future budget documents. At the time, he also agreed to have the information posted on the PAPS website.

The information has not, to date, been published online on the PAPS website. The presentation slides have, however, been posted on the City of Prince Albert’s website.

The police budget is presented in a line-by-line format to the Board of Police Commissioners, which three members of council – Mayor Greg Dionne, Couns. Tim Scharkowski and Lee Atkinson – are members of.

Zurakowski said it is important for the rest of council to see the information because those members who do not sit on the board also have questions. Without that information in front of them, the councillors aren’t able to answer those questions, he added.

“And members of the public have questions as well, that we as elected [officials] don’t have that information. So, how can we represent them without having a more transparent process?”

However, Zurakowski said he understands why a lot of the financial details are not shared with the public.

“There are things that the public should not know: where the police and where the emergency services spend their money and there’s good reason for that for the safety of the public. But I think there are other occasions where we need to take a look,” he said.

But he said he hasn’t yet heard a reason why members of council don’t have access to the police budget.

Zurakowski is hopeful that this will be an opportunity to discuss why certain financial items are not available to council. He said that’s why he served a notice of motion, rather than try to have the item passed during this meeting.

As for the unavailability of the police budget documents online, Zurakowski said it’s been a frustration of his.

“I’d like to get where other major centres are, where … at least the presentation we make in public is online for the members of the public to see and have access to. And I don’t think we’re there yet … And I guess part of this process is to try to push them in that direction.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames