A new Provincial model for policing won’t change the County’s current enhanced services.
Foothills County council decided on Dec. 11 it would continue with its current option-two enhanced policing agreement with the Province, which provides additional RCMP officers patrolling rural areas at the municipality’s cost for overtime hours.
Deputy CAO Ryan Payne said the costs are just around $200,000, and after a year of service it appears the program will operate on a near break-even basis with revenue coming from fine collection.
“Of course there are one-offs where a Crown prosecutor may reduce fines, they may throw fines out, some people choose not to pay their fines, so that delays revenue coming to the County,” said Payne. “However, it’s pretty close to break-even.”
There is a slight delay between when fines are collected and when the municipality receives its revenues, he said, but the revenue will come in eventually.
He said the recently announced provincial policing model will come at an extra cost to the municipality, though the financial impact on the County has not ben determined.
Given the current program is operating at-cost, he suggested to council it renew the option-two agreement and continue with the service. In the future, if the new program seems to cover the County adequately, the contract could be revisited, he said.
“We don’t anticipate boots on the ground from this new policing program will be coming to us anytime soon,” said Payne. “Because our current term expires Dec. 31, we’d like to get the Province going on writing that contract so we can have it signed before the end of the month.”
Council agreed.
“The stats are very excellent and I’m certainly supportive of it,” said Reeve Suzanne Oel. “I think in the climate of not knowing whether the policing model is going to give us any officers or any improvement in level of service, this is certainly a response from our community to the rural crime troubles that we’re trying to address and really has made a significant difference.”
CAO Harry Riva Cambrin said the implementation strategy of the new plan is unclear. Though it is set to come into effect April 1, he said there’s no indication of when the County can expect officers.
Given the uncertainty, he said Foothills County has budgeted for its enhanced policing program to continue into 2020.
Whether the contract is renegotiated or cancelled in future will be determined once the County knows how the program will work, he said. At this time, it appears the new model will not bring any revenue back to the municipality though it pays for the service.
“Under the new program, the new officers, there will be no funds coming back from what I read,” said Riva Cambrin. “The Province considers this covering their share of costs of the program.
“Enhanced policing, you receive fine revenue the way we’re doing it right now. The new program, no fine revenue.”
