Committee approves budget
The timeline to acquire eight new officers to patrol the supervised consumption site will be tight, Chief Troy Cooper acknowledged, but after the unanimous approval of its 2020-21 budgets, attention can now turn toward delaying the site’s opening to accommodate having the officers in place.
City council spent just over an hour asking Cooper about specific points of the police force’s first multi-year budget, which will add 11 new officers over the two-year period. Ten will be assigned to the front lines, eight of them focusing on the area around the supervised consumption site, which will be operated by AIDS Saskatoon.
Cooper said it’s likely the opening of the consumption site will be delayed until the community is ready. He said this will give police time to have recruits sent to police college and return to take the place of other staff who will be assigned to patrol at the site.
“It’s important that we provide an appropriate community response so that they understand the community they’re policing and the people who are using these services and the value of harm reduction,” Cooper told media after the police budget was approved.
The original proposed police budget for 2020 included a request for three new constables and two new full-time civilian positions. A third civilian position, a corporate executive director created in 2020, would replace an outgoing 17-year officer.
The addition of eight officers to the 2020 budget added $828,200 to the city’s overall preliminary budget, bringing overall police expenditures to $110,431,100.
For 2021, the proposed police expenditure is $114,776,900, with revenues of $10,779,000. The police force is requesting the addition of four new patrol constable positions and two civilian positions for 2021.
Coun. Hillary Gough moved the motion to approve the two-year budget, calling it “thoughtful” and referencing feedback she has received from her Ward 2 constituents, which include Pleasant Hill residents who were interested in the additional capacity of police to respond to calls.
Pleasant Hill was the focus of two surges of police resources following spikes in serious crime this year, including midsummer homicides.
The addition of eight officers to patrol the area around the supervised consumption site, located in Pleasant Hill, will do more than just respond to the site, Cooper told the budget committee. He said they will respond to other concerns and reduce the draw of officers from other areas of the city to deal with activity in Pleasant Hill.
Cooper said the result will be savings in health costs, rather than policing costs.
Coun. Sarina Gersher asked Cooper what would happen if the addition of eight officers was not supported.
“If we don’t have the additional staff, our service delivery would be degraded,” he answered.
Mayor Charlie Clark asked Cooper if police would make the same request for eight additional officers even if there were no supervised consumption site.
Cooper replied yes, pointing to the already increased call volumes.
The police budget includes a request for a pilot community safety officer program, which is projected to launch in 2021 and be distinct from the existing community support officer program, which employs civilians to enforce bylaws.
The police budget accounts for 21 per cent of the city’s overall budget. City council still has to approve the overall city budget package. If passed as is, there will be a 3.14-per-cent property tax increase in 2020 and a 3.52-per-cent increase in 2021.
Saskatoon currently has 173 officers per 100,000 people, below the national average of 185. With the new officers, Cooper estimated that number will rise to 176.