A recent announcement by the provincial government to add more police, also means small rural communities will be helping foot the bill.
On Wednesday, December 4, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Doug Schweitzer announced it would be increasing the front line RCMP staff by about 300 officers and will add members to specialized RCMP units that work on organized crime, drug trafficking, and autos and scrap metal thefts. There will also be additional civilian positions to support policing.
“Crime affects many in my own rural community, and it is an issue that is incredibly personal to me. All Albertans deserve to feel safe in their own homes and confident they will not fall victim to violent or property crime. This new police funding model will provide increased security and certainty for rural Albertans, and value for taxpayer dollars, ” said Schweitzer.
Part of the new agreement is smaller counties, towns, and villages will begin contributing to RCMP funding as of April 2020. Currently, municipalities with populations under 5,000 were not responsible for policing costs. In 2020 they will contribute 10 per cent to the total cost, ramping up to 30 per cent by 2023.
This has left local municipalities crunching budgets numbers to make up the added expense.
For Starland, through initial estimates say it will cost $61,335 the first year, up to $184,137 by 2023.
“We figured it won’t happen because they didn’t give us enough time to budget for it,” said Reeve Steve Wannstrom. “Our concern is, are police going to show up out here? Are we going to see some actual time spent in rural Alberta? All we are hearing is how they are going to take our money but are there going to be more police out in the community or not?”
He is also concerned about how it is being calculated.
‘It says it is based on equalized assessments, well we are still being assessed for companies that don’t exist so what happens there?” said Wannstrom. His sentiment is echoed by Al Kemmere, president, Rural Municipalities of Alberta.
“Absorbing additional policing costs will be a significant challenge for rural municipalities given the current economic environment and RMA continues to be concerned about the use of equalized assessment in the calculations of amounts paid, however a reduction in the weighting of equalized assessment based on consultation is appreciated. RMA is looking forward to participating on the Alberta Police Advisory Board to inform how additional funding will be reinvested to improve service standards to the rural and remote municipalities and how municipalities can have increased local input into monitoring the service deliverables as compared to cost increases.”
In the Village of Rockyford, with a population of about 316, they will have to find $5,744 more in their budget this year and by 2023, that goes up to $17,243.
Mayor Darcy Burke says, of course, there is a need for more officers in rural areas, and in the province.
“This is going to be the toughest budget I have ever dealt with in the 23 years of being on council, In Rockyford it will be a levy of about $40 per household,” he said.
“This isn’t coming out of what we already had, this is going to be new taxation to our residents. In tough economic times, we don’t want to be adding costs to families. At the end of the day that is what is happening.”
Despite the hit, he understands where the government is coming from.
“I understand what is happening. We are in tough economic times. The province’s revenues are tight and we all shared in taking this debt on, we all benefit by this debt, whether it was new hospitals, roads or bridges. Every Albertan shared in that, and now every Albertan has to share in the cost of paying this money back, but we have to be cautious about it.”
Burke said the Strathmore detachment has already made improvements and hopes this investment means more.
“They have gone to watch clerks at the Strathmore detachments and already we are seeing more RCMP in the rural areas I have seen in 10 years. Part of the problem is we took the initiative and moved forward to get more policing on the street. Now in four years from now, I start paying $118 for every property in Rockyford in additional funding, what am I going to get for that? Is there going to be a guarantee I am going to get better service? Is there going to be less crime? What happens if the crime rate doesn’t go down?”
