Police budget passes, promises of more online disclosure made

“Workload sort of drives the staffing costs and resources and those are arrests. And there are different ways … to compare us to other counterparts in the province and Western Canada,” he said.

Year-to-date (as of August/September), Prince Albert Police made 6,294 arrests, compared to 9,041 made by police in Saskatoon and 1,256 by police in Moose Jaw. As well, there are liability issues, Cooper said. Many of those arrested are high-risk, vulnerable people with incredible health risks, he added.

Of those arrests made in Prince Albert, about 34 per cent of the people arrested are not from Prince Albert or the Rural Municipality (RM) of Prince Albert.

“They’re from the surrounding villages and towns and First Nations that access the resources that we have here, including police resources. And the challenge that we have, of course, when we budget is that the programs that we deliver, we have a difficult time reaching the people that we’re arresting.”

The Prince Albert Police, however, ranks fourth in the province in terms of rates of pay.

The City funds 79 per cent of the police budget, with other sources of funding including the province and grants. The police department employs 34 civilians, 73 City-funded officers, 20 provincially funded officers and 19 specialized positions in the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, Integrated Street Enforcement Team (ISET) and Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU).

Cooper’s budget overview included an update on the bylaw enforcement unit, which is managed by the police. The bylaw unit enforces regulations put in place by city council.

Prince Albert’s bylaw program is currently being reviewed by the province. The police are looking at creating community safety officer positions, and are asking to increase the authority of its enforcement officers so they “can be in more places,” Cooper told the budget committee.

He explained that the bylaw unit has higher staffing costs associated with it now, as compared to when the City managed it, but it does have lower costs for radios and accessing records. The equipment and recordkeeping is shared with the police service. As well, he said the bylaw unit has a 97-98 per cent compliance rate.

The police department also asked to have funds set aside that it could use towards creating a regional integrated traffic unit. The Prince Albert Police would provide four officers: one existing, one new position and two provincially funded positions. The RCMP would contribute eight officers to an enforcement unit that would enforce traffic safety in Prince Albert and in surrounding towns and RMs.

The plans for the unit are in the early preparatory stages.

“But even if that falls apart, we know that traffic safety is a priority for our board. That was very clear. And it became a priority for our board when council made it their priority and that’s very clear to us. So you’ll see, and we’ve had a 20 per cent increase in traffic enforcement in the last year so far year to date, because of that commitment from our board and council.”

Later that morning, Mayor Greg Dionne told paNOW that the committee put the money aside and it’s not allowed to be spent until the City has questions answered about who is paying for certain costs.

“It could be a net benefit to us. Like, if that unit does become eight officers, and two are funded by us and those eight officers ended up 10 days, or 12 days out of the month in our city writing tickets, the safety of our community would be so much better, we’ll recover the costs invested in that program.”

The information he presented was all public information – the meeting was open to the public, as well – the information was not included in the budget documents, which are available on the City’s website. Coun. Martin Ring said the presentation notes should be included those documents in the future. Cooper agreed that the request is a fair one and such an inclusion won’t harm the department’s relations with the police board.

He also agreed to have the information posted on the Prince Albert Police Service’s website.

The police budget is approved by the Board of Police Commissioners after a line-by-line review, and arrives in front of the budget committee in the form of a request.

Dionne explained that the increase requested by the police would have been larger, but money from the province reduced the amount needed. He later noted that the department has the highest number of employees – in a single department. But at the end of the day, he said, the salary costs is something they’re going to have to look at.

“Because we can tell everyone else to cut their budget, and that budget seems to float around there. So, we are going to review it.”

Other Day 1 highlights

-The budget committee approved a number of other department’s budgets, including financial services, fire, city clerk, city manager, mayor, council, public works and community services.

-The budget committee approved the creation of three new positions in the roadways section of the public works department. The new positions are meant to alleviate some of the backlog in street sweeping, snow clearing and road repairs experienced throughout the year. It’s the first staffing level change for the department in seven to 10 years, according to acting public works director Wes Hicks.

-Many of the increases that the City is seeing are associated with salaries, but also with higher utility costs. According to Dionne, SaskPower’s rate increase will mean the City will spend $275,000 to $300,000 more for electricity use.

-The budget for floral display planting and maintenance will be slightly more than doubled. This year, the City spent $22,870. The budget committee approved $45,870 for floral displays, with the work to be contracted out.

-The budget request of $200,000 for assessment appeal losses will likely be halved on Day 2. Financial services director Joe Day explained that the City had lost assessment appeals after the assessment and had to pay refunds last year. This year, it charged the property owners based on the assessed value, not the appealed value, and those charges were re-appealed and the City found out on Friday that it won two of five appeals thus far.

All decisions made by the budget committee are not final – council will have the final word before its final meeting before the Christmas break, on Dec. 8.

paNOW’s Thia James will be at the meeting and will have live updates from Day 2 of budget deliberations, starting at 8 a.m.

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tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

by Thia James

Police budget passes, promises of more online disclosure made

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