Victoria police board accused of using front-line funds for legal fees
VICTORIA B.C’s director of police services is looking into a complaint that the Victoria police board took money earmarked for front-line policing to pay for the ballooning costs of the investigation into former police chief Frank Elsner.
Retired Victoria police staff sergeant Darren Laur filed a complaint with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner in July 2016, alleging that the police board used money from the operational budget to cover Elsner’s legal fees and to hire a media crisis consultant without getting approval from Victoria or Esquimalt council.
Laur said a senior officer with Victoria police confirmed money was being taken out of the operational budget, which Laur felt was a misuse of taxpayer dollars.
“Because they were moving money out of an operational side of the budget, it was going to affect the members as well as the citizens of Victoria and Esquimalt,” Laur told the Victoria Times Colonist on Thursday. He said funds in the operational budget were already earmarked for equipment, training and other public-safety expenses. “That’s going to leave the department in a lurch at the end of the year … and that’s not fair to taxpayers,” Laur said.
Laur said the board’s actions breach a section of the Police Act that dictates that unless it’s approved by council, a municipal police board must not make an expenditure that is not specified in the board’s council-endorsed budget.
In February, the police board dismissed Laur’s complaint, but he appealed, sending the matter back to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.
As a result, Commissioner Stan Lowe asked Clayton Pecknold, director of provincial police services, to look into the matter. Pecknold said he informed the OPCC and the police board that he is giving the matter due consideration.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, cochair of the Victoria-Esquimalt police board, said police services is not currently doing a formal investigation. “They may do a review. They may not. At this time, they have not indicated to the police board one way or another.”
The police board has not disclosed how much the investigation into Elsner, and the subsequent legal battles, has cost taxpayers. Elsner resigned in May, 13 months after he was suspended with pay. Elsner was the subject of a misconduct investigation that initially focused on inappropriate Twitter messages he exchanged with a Saanich police officer who was the wife of a Victoria police officer.
Elsner is facing two separate disciplinary hearings on allegations that he provided misleading information to a subordinate officer and an independent investigator, and attempted to procure a false statement from a witness, along with allegations of workplace harassment.
The police board is in the process of looking for a new chief.