(File photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Sending letter to federal candidates

City concerned about impact from increase to RCMP policing costs

Aug 19, 2021 | 2:30 PM

North Battleford council passed a resolution at its meeting this week to voice their concerns about the impact to the municipality from anticipated increases to RCMP policing costs.

The city will be sending a letter to candidates in the Battlefords-Lloydminster riding in the upcoming federal election about the issue.

The federal government and the RCMP union recently completed negotiations for a first contact, said city manager Randy Patrick in his submitted report. The contract impacts all municipalities using RCMP policing services.

The initial cost increase has not yet been released, but administration estimates that city RCMP costs would increase between 20 per cent to 25 per cent.

Patrick said the increase will impact the city’s 2022 budget and future budgets.

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For a population under 15,000, the city pays 70 per cent of the cost and the federal government the remaining 30 per cent for the municipality’s 37 RCMP officers. The province currently contributes $770,000 for seven of these officers.

Patrick said given the estimated policing cost increase impacting the municipality, taxes would eventually need to increase at somewhere between 5.3 per cent to 6.7 per cent to absorb the increase in RCMP costs. This may be partially mitigated if the province continues to pay for the bulk of the costs for the seven officers they currently support.

The city is also concerned about the 2021 Canada Census results for population, scheduled to be released in February 2022. If it shows the city’s population is 15,000 or more, this will result in a higher cost-share of policing costs for the city.

Patrick said there is also an impact from retroactive policing cost increases which will be paid to the RCMP officers for each year starting in 2017.

He said the best estimate the city currently has for the payment of retro pay is about $800,000. Council has not been directly taxed for these expenses, so they will need to consider the increased expense or service level changes in future budgets. As this is a one-time adjustment, administration proposed the cost be absorbed through the city’s 2020 unappropriated surplus.

Council agreed that the city will work with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA), the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), and the province to see if there is some way of phasing in the RCMP cost increases, making the burden a little lighter while also working with other communities.

Patrick said being an election campaign now, the city would typically send its letter of concern to all federal candidates and to SUMA asking them to make the matter into an election issue in Saskatchewan.

“I’m sure a lot of the communities will be asking the same thing, at least where the RCMP are providing the service,” Patrick added. “I’m quite certain there will be a lot of letters going out very quickly for a number of communities including us in the riding for sure, but I suspect it will be throughout the province as well.”

Coun. Kent Lindgren recommended the city also include other issues it’s dealing with as part of the letter to candidates.

Mayor David Gillan said he would also discuss the policing cost increases during the mayors meeting this week.

Coun. Len Taylor said he agrees the city should be raising the issue of the impact from the increase with its federal representatives now.

“We should get a clear understanding of what the expectations are in municipalities, not only for this set of negotiations but for everything going forward,” he said. “I think the FCM and SUMA will provide a table for some of these comments. I am not going to hold my breath for a positive result for taxpayers, but I think as long as we are fighting for the taxpayers of the municipality, recognizing we have a lot of other priorities that are their priorities, we have to find ways to fund that as well. I think we are serving our community well if we can do that.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow