Saanich police are warning they’ll be forced to lay off 17 people if they have to cut the provisional police budget by five per cent, as proposed by Saanich council.
Joanne Ko, the department’s executive services manager, told council this week there would be no way to avoid layoffs if the 2025 provisional police budget is cut back.
Saanich police have proposed a $52.36-million budget for next year, a $5.24-million jump from 2024.
Ko characterized it as a “hold-the-line budget” that reflects the increased cost of doing business. She said labour costs represent nearly 84 per cent or $43.86 million of the total.
“This budget funds our existing staffing needs and service contracts vital to our day-to-day operations,” she said.
A reduction of five per cent would mean the layoff of 17 existing police positions, she said, resulting in “unacceptable service reductions” in a municipality that is actively trying to increase housing supply, thereby boosting population growth.
Cutting the budget by one per cent would mean eliminating four positions, while a cut of two per cent would mean the loss of seven positions, she said.
In an interview, Mayor Dean Murdock said while council wants to reduce costs, “it is very clear that there is no wiggle room within the police budget that doesn’t result in removing police officers from the street.”
Murdock said that if the police budget is left as-is, however, it could have a significant impact on the operations budget for the district. “What’s proposed in the provisional budget represents a three per cent increase to the budget or three per cent increase in taxes just on its own.”
Early projections suggested the Saanich operations budget for 2025 could be more than $206 million, which would mean a property tax increase of more than nine per cent.
There is little new spending in the police budget, Ko said, as most of the increase for 2025 reflects wage and salary increases for existing staff, the increased cost of being part of regional integrated police units, being tied into the provincial 911 system and increased costs in some service agreements and contracts.
An extra $160,000 has been requested to fund two mental-health co-response constables to establish two teams of first responders to focus on mental-health calls.
Saanich Police Chief Dean Duthie said the new hires are a top priority, as the district fielded more than 600 mental-health calls this year.
At the same time, he noted there is uncertainty about the regional Integrated Mobile Crisis Response Team, which is staffed by Island Health and supported by a police officer, since Central Saanich announced it would pull out for 2025 and West Shore RCMP have indicated they will pull out at the end of next year.
“Right now, the call response falls to our patrol officers, so they are the first responders to any mental-health call, which can result in a high number of apprehensions, which means a transport to the hospital to turn over to the care and assessment of a medical practitioner,” Duthie said, adding that under the Mental Health Act, an officer must stay with the individual until they are seen by a doctor.
“This leads to an extreme amount of time in hospital wait rooms for our patrol officers.”
Duthie said the average wait time for officers at hospitals is two hours and 30 minutes, meaning patrol officers spent an estimated 1,017 hours waiting in hospitals in 2024, the equivalent of 85 12-hour shifts.
Duthie said the model he is proposing should reduce the number of people taken into custody and to hospital, and translate into faster response on the scene so episodes do not escalate, which in turn will reduce the need for emergency response teams to be dispatched.
Council is not expected to debate the merits of the provisional police budget until the new year, but Coun. Nathalie Chambers said Monday that she supports the police.
“If you don’t have safety, you don’t have much.”
Coun. Colin Plant said he has concerns about the sustainability of all budgets in the district that continue to rise each year.
“The increases that you’re seeing are merited and I understand they’re collectively agreed upon, but I think they are becoming challenging for the municipality’s residents to afford,” he said.
“But on the other hand they want safe communities and it’s hard to argue with that.
“So, it is that balancing act that I think this council needs to probably do.”
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