Police ask for $87-million budget bump over 4 years

City police are chasing an $87-million bump in annual funding over the next four years, hoping council signs off on spending for what the force predicts will be rising demands tied to legalization of pot.

The department was the first civic agency to make a presentation to city council when budget deliberations for the next four years kicked off Thursday.

Budget talks may run for up to 10 days.

The force is the city’s largest operating expense.

If approved, taxpayers would be shouldering an annual policing cost of about $424 million and that would creep over half a billion yearly by 2022.

Ward 1 Coun. Andrew Knack said the total projected amount jumped out at him because that would surpass Calgary’s police spending.

“And our population is about 30 per cent less. And so that jumped out at me a lot,” Knack said.

But acting police Chief Kevin Brezinski said that calls to police are on the rise, and have already jumped two per cent in 2018 — or about 2,200 calls.

He said officers are struggling to respond to the volume.

“I can tell you that based on our call volume and the crime trends we have in Edmonton, we don’t have enough resources to adequately address the needs of the public,” he said.

The force hopes to hire an additional 72 police officers, and has a plan to take uniformed officers out of the 911 call centre, replacing them with civilian employees.

The department also wants to hire 24 officers who will be dedicated to policing cannabis.

“I don’t think anybody wants to overreact, but at the same time we want to make the public understand there has been impact already,” said Deputy Chief Al Murphy.

Police cite an uptick in the number of cannabis-impaired driving investigations: in 2016, there was one driver confirmed to have been impaired by THC and in 2017, there were 11. In 2018, there have been 34 suspected cases of driver impairment by THC, five of which have been confirmed to be cannabis.

Murphy said in the last six weeks, police have seen a serious injury collision where THC impairment is suspected.

He acknowledged that the rise could be in part that more people are driving on cannabis, but it could also be related to increased police efforts to detect cannabis use on the road.

But the officers faced skepticism from some council members about the anticipated increase in people deciding to use cannabis and get behind the wheel.

“There’s not suddenly a huge bubble, a huge increase in the number of people who partyhearty,” said Ward 6 Coun. Scott McKeen.

Mayor Don Iveson said more enforcement resources may be needed, but he added that the city shouldn’t be on the hook for covering the cost.

“I will not support raising property taxes to fund the further cost of cannabis legalization. I am going to demand support, either from the provinces or directly from the federal government,” he said.