Council Says Nyet To Proposed Police Budget

By Robert Thomas

It was a choice seemingly based on Nikolai Gogol’s great novel “Dead Souls” (where the protagonist buys the paperwork for non-working deceased peasants to gain prestige and also cash in) with a good measure of photo radar cash as Council decided to send the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners (MJBOPC) proposed 2023 budget back for a second look to find savings.

At Wednesday afternoon’s special Council meeting Council voted 4 - 3 to send the MJPS budget back to the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners (MJBOPC) to look for cuts as it is too expensive.

The vote saw two members of the MJBOPC - Councillors Dawn Luhning and Doug Blanc vote along with Councillor Heather Eby in favour of the proposed budget.

Opposed were Councillors Jamey Logan, Kim Robinson and Crystal Froese. They were joined by Mayor Clive Tolley and member of the MJBOPC in voting to turn down the budget.

“Now what? In my 19 years here I have never had it happen so I’m not sure what the process is because this crew did not send it back to the (Moose Jaw) Police Service,” Councillor Luhning asked.

It was a question to send the MJBOPC 2023 Budget back to answer questions about potentially increasing the amount of photo radar money requested (Traffic Safety Reserve) as well as using funding for at the present time are non-existent and approved officers to the force.

Council Discussion

Finance director Brian Acker started out Council’s discussion by explaining Council had only two options - approve the MJBOPC Budget or send it back for review with specific reasons requesting the review.

“In terms of the (Moose Jaw) Police Service you really have two options. You can approve the Police Budget as presented….your other option is to return the budget to the (Moose Jaw) Police Service with a reason for returning. Those are really your only two options,” Acker said.

Chair of the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners Councillor Dawn Luhning said “they (the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners) are requesting $612,933 in additional funding. That is as Mr Acker has stated in the report 1.8 percent (property tax increase).”

The MJBOPC were asking Council to approve net funding $11,781,059 in 2023 plus $110,000 moved from the Traffic Safety Reserve to the MJPS for 2022 and 2023 for traffic safety initiatives (a total of $220,000) and the capital budget approved in 2023 for $235,000.

Councillor Luhning said the additional funding was necessary to allow the MJPS to properly do their jobs.

“As we know there are many pressures being placed on the (Moose Jaw) Police Service (MJPS) with all sorts of different tasks they have being doing and it really doesn’t stop right? They are looking to simply maintain the service they are providing to the City,” she said.

Councillor Luhning also stated the MJPS had been promised $110,000 from the photo radar generated Traffic Safety Reserve in 2017 and for later years the funding was removed. Money the MJPS was recently looking to access.

“Since that time 2018 and then there was a situation here when over the last month the (Moose Jaw) Police Service was looking for that funding and it wasn’t there,” she said.

At the in-camera portion of the November 14, 2022 Executive Committee a large contingent of uniformed MJPS as well as the two civilian members of the MJBOPC met behind closed doors with the Committee. By being held in-camera the subject of those discussions are kept private from the press and general public.

Questions About Funding For Presently Only Approved Officers

Councillor Heather Eby asked about what happened to the funding for approved officers who have yet to join the MJPS.

“The (Moose Jaw) Police Service has an approved strength of 64 members if I am not mistaken and that has been approved the last couple of years?….my question is it was approved at that much but we have not had (that) many members working so those salaries obviously don’t get paid to people who are not working so does that just become part of their earnings or what happens?” Councillor Eby asked.

Finance director Acker said the MJPS would receive the funds but they were modest amounts for officers yet to be hired.

“They would budget fairly small amounts in a year where they hired new officers. As there was costs to sending them off to (the Saskatchewan Police) College and then their entry level wages. So it is certainly not at the level of a full fledged police officer would receive,” he said.

The money - albeit small - would sit in the MJPS’s bank account.

“They would have that in their budget yes ultimately if that ended up surplus that would flow (to there).”

Councillor Crystal Froese said she fully supported the MJPS but at the same time questioned the funding going to the MJPS for officers approved but yet to be hired.

She mentioned the MJPS being approved by Council to have 64 officers while over the past while actually only employing 59 members.

“They have been at 59 (officers) and they are still holding a budget for at least two or three of those as officers who would have been fully on boarded,” she said going on to stress she supported the MJPS but at the same time questioned about the funding going to the MJPS for officers yet to be hired.

Despite her total support for the MJPS’s efforts Councillor Froese still questioned where the funding went for presently not employed officers and how that could help with the bottom line.

“There could be a significant amount of money they are not spending and could that be allocated? I know we don’t have any say in how they allocate their money which is a good thing because they are the experienced ones around the table but it could be put into other resources until they get up to their compliment and then looking next year coming to us looking for an increase.”

Councillor Froese said some of the funding for non-hired but approved officers could be used to reduce the 1.86 percent increase in overall property taxes the MJBOPC’s budget, if approved as is, would have.

Social Media Postings Enters The Discussion

Member of the MJBOPC Councillor Doug Blanc said he wanted to make a comment about people on social media saying “oh the Police budget is too high. It needs to be changed. It needs to be lowered.”

Councillor Blanc gave an emotional appeal based off of the November 22nd presentation by Staff Sergeant Taylor Elder.

The 13 year MJPS veteran Elder gave an emotional presentation about the recent appearance of guns in Moose Jaw something contradicted by Chief Rick Bourassa when he stated guns have always been here but just showing up as the MJPS increases its investigative activities.

Councillor Blanc said more often than not MJPS members are becoming victims of violence.

“But when they (the MJPS) gave their presentation they had one officer say (when he joined the police force) I believe it was 15 years ago they very seldom saw any weapons. Now they are seeing more and more weapons. I just look at the statistical extract which is public information, I guess tomorrow, but year to date there have been 11 assaults on police officers. So they don’t go anymore one on one for their own safety. They almost have to pair up,” he said.

Councillor Blanc referred to two recent incidents - one in October and one in November - where firearms were part of the mix.

“As the constable said in the report when they go now weapons are involved and there has been a couple of situations in the last few months,” he said, adding “I don’t know if we can reduce the (Moose Jaw) Police (Service) budget any more but I think they are at the max now.”

The MJPS just released details on their Facebook page about an October 21st incident involving shots fired this past Wednesday - details, for the large part, previously released to the Regina media outlets the Leader-Post and CJME during the weekend when the incident took place.

Councillor Blanc said the MJPS had been trying to send recruits to the Saskatchewan Police College but had hit “some roadblocks” when it came to being approved for the number of training spots requested.

“So I think they are trying and this is troubled times. If you listen to social media people are always saying where are the Police?”

Councillor Blanc said the MJPS is facing a two-edged sword. One where people don’t want to fund them and one where people are for more police despite not wanting to fund them.

“Its a two-fold question. In one aspect people are saying well do we need to spend that much but at the next time they say where are they? They should be out on the street. So it is a tough dilemma to do,” he said.

Councillor Blanc said as a member of the Moose Jaw Police Commission he has heard stories the MJPS has gone through and how it would be “really nice to release some of that information because it is just alarming what they have to put up with.”

Councillor Luhning agreed with Councillor Blanc that there were requests on social media that people “do not see them enough. You know where are the police officers?”

She pointed out there were initiatives in the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners’ budget designed to ensure the MJPS are more in the community.

Initiatives including licensing software products to allow officers to receive more fuller information in the field and also to write reports in the field and not have to return to the Police Station as they dio now.

“There is unfortunately paperwork that needs to be done and how that paperwork is done is in the police station…there are initiatives in the budget that will move that work into the field. So that the police are in the community more.”

Discussion Turns To Cost Savings

Councillor Jamey Logan said he was 100 percent behind what the MJPS was doing but nevertheless asked what the exact requirements were to send the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners back for reconsideration.

Councillor Logan said he had no problem with increasing officers, “the more the merrier would be great. I don’t doubt it is a dangerous job and all the things said I agree with.”

Despite fully supporting the MJPS’s efforts he openly questioned if there were savings to be had by not funding all of the approved officers if they were not hired and attending the Saskatchewan Police College.

“I am just wondering to have another look and see if there is not savings from the officers that haven’t yet been sent to (Police) College”

He pointed to the MJBOPC budget being prepared in October and that perhaps - despite the MJPS’s best efforts - there were still vacancies in approved MJPS officer strength and if that money could not be used to reduced the requested amount.

All Departments Should Chip In Not Just The MJPS

Councillor Eby said she wished the MJPS were requesting a slightly smaller amount as she would be comfortable in approving it. She said a 1.5 percent increase in property taxes from the MJBOPC was something she could live with versus the 1.86 percent requested.

If the MJPS had to find savings she said all departments should be asked to do the same.

“I feel if we are going to send this back to the Police….I think we have to ask (the) Fire (Department) to look at a reduction as well somewhere along the way.”

She based her opinion on not being able to ask one department and not another.

“I don’t see anything glaring in the Police budget but I recognize the strength of officers not being there as a point I just don’t see anything else as glaring.”

Precedent Set Already At City Hall

City manager Jim Puffalt said the City faced a similar situation as the MJPS when former City Clerk/Solicitor Myron Gulka-Teichko retired and there were two other solicitor vacancies. The $300,000 not spent on the three solicitor positions was transferred to help reduce operating costs and then transferred back with staff hiring.

“If there are vacant positions and you don’t have people into the positions that money is sitting and not being used for the purpose. I would say the same as anyone else never take away the officers this is more of a pragmatic thing, you can’t fund everything so this is an opportunity for everybody,” Puffalt said, adding “if you are at 64 (officers, next year) then you get the (funding for) 64 (officers) in funding.”

Ask For More Funds From The Photo Radar Generated Reserve

Councillor Luhning was told the Traffic Safety Reserve would sit at approximately $400,000 by the end of 2023 if Council agreed to transfer $1.6 million into the capital budget for street paving and $220,000 to the MJPS budget."

“Honestly there is another place we could take some funding out of if we are in favour of the Police Budget we could use the Traffic Safety Reserve because that is what it is for. It’s for safety in the community. We could utilize some of that funding instead of adding it to the tax base,” she said.

“We could move $335,000 out of the Traffic Safety Reserve and now they only need .84 percent (of a property tax increase) on the tax base,” Councillor Luhning said.

Acker said it was not up to Council to modify the request for funding from the Traffic Safety Reserve but it was up to the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners to change “as it is part of their budget right now.”

“The Board of Police Commissioners would have to amend that budget, then approve it and then re-submit it to Council. The only caution with using those funds is we have that money available every year. There are certainly other demands on that Traffiic Safety Reserve and it would significantly increase the demands on that,” he said.

It needs to be noted in a 2018 interview about the uses for automated speed enforcement (photo radar) revenues the Province’s Executive Committee responded the initiative was “not about generating revenue, it's about calming traffic in areas where speed is a problem.”

After The Vote

Following Councillor Luhning’s question on what to do with the proposed 2023 MJBOPC Budget Councillor Doug Blanc made a motion to refer the budget back to the Moose Jaw Board Of Police Commisisoners for review.

Council requested the review look at transferring funds from the Traffic Safety Reserve - generated through photo radar tickets - and not funding unfilled approved officer positions.

The referral vote passed unanimously.

There was no date given as to when the Board Of Police Commissioners would complete the requested review.