REGINA - City council has given its approval to the Regina Police Services budget on the first day of its budget deliberation process.
The police budget passed by a 9-2 vote, with only councillors Andrew Stevens and Dan LeBlanc against. The number that was approved Wednesday is for a net operating budget of $102,745,000. That is an increase of $4,622,000, or up 4.7 per cent from the 2023 budget figure of $98,123,200.
The ask from RPS has already undergone a number of revisions compared to what had been approved earlier by the Board of Police Commissioners. The Board had approved a budget ask of $5,697,500, or a net 5.8 per cent increase to the police budget. That amount had included a budget ask of additional staffing to the police force of 12 officers and one civilian.
Since then, roughly a million dollars has been shaved off of that ask in an effort to reduce the overall mill rate. That reduction was achieved by reducing the staffing request in half. The final ask of council was for six officers, plus two more officers who are provincially funded as well as one civilian, and that was the number in the budget approved Wednesday. The reduction also means a .38 reduction to the mill rate.
“At the end of the day we are satisfied with what we have,” said Assistant Police Chief Dean Rae about the approval of the six additional officers.
“We’re still going to be able to meet the expectations that the community has placed on us.”
On the capital side, the RPS capital budget is $3,381,800. One item not included for 2024 involves the renovations to the Regina Police building. Renovations are currently under way to the first and third floor and those are expected to be complete next year but the 2024 budget does not include funding for the second floor.
“We were hoping to have the capital money to continue on with the construction of the second floor starting at the end of 2024 and into 2025,” Rae said. “Right now we don’t have it, we hopefully will get it next year and maybe we’ll be able start in ‘25, but there may be a time period where things aren’t being done which again will later create additional disruption for the service.”
As for what the budget means for improving safety in Regina, Rae said it will allow them to be able to continue with their growth plan and meet the expectations placed on them.
“Every two years we do a community perceptions survey and what we’re hearing from the community — and this is what a lot of what we do is based on, what we hear from the community, what we’ve done with our strategic planning sessions — what we are hearing from the community is they want to see more police officers, they want to have police officers have more interactions within the youth, and they want to see some crime reduction. So we’re going to continue doing all the work that we can to try to meet those expectations that the public places on us. We may not get there as quick as we wanted but we’re going to get there.”
As for what approving the six new officers means, Rae said "we're getting support from our Board, and from the Councillors. So they're hearing what we're saying that we need additional resources, and helping mental health struggles that we sometimes have. It shows the membership that we're all pulling together for the same thing... at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your perspective is, we all want the same thing. We all want a safe community. And that's the goal of Regina Police Service with our collaborative work in our community."
Rae adds that it "feels good" to get the RPS budget approved. "We're quite happy to get it across the line... there's a lot of relief on all of our parts and we're satisfied with the end result."
Next up in budget process: Delegations
Overall, the police budget discussion lasted about four hours, with council members asking questions at length of the delegation from RPS.
Now that the decision on the Regina Police Services budget is in the books, the next step for council is to move forward with considering the entire general operations and capital budget for 2024.
First up, council have begun hearing this afternoon from the 20 delegations that have arrived at council to speak on a host of issues including bike lanes, free transit for youth, and the homeless issue.
There were some fireworks at one point when Councillor Bob Hawkins asked for a recess out of concern that no members of city administration were in council chambers to listen to the delegates. Ultimately, the meeting continued on to its scheduled break; councillor Lori Bresciani later pointed out that administration members could still attend the meeting virtually.
The expectation is that council will likely get through hearing delegations tonight and then get on with the budget discussion by council members Thursday.
