The County of Barrhead may have to pay a lot more of its policing costs shortly. The problem is that they will not be receiving any more money from the province.
That is what county manager Debbie Oyarzun told councillors Oct. 1 during a discussion of a proposed new rural policing funding model.
Currently, rural municipalities with populations less than 5,000, as well as the vast majority of counties and municipal districts, don’t contribute towards their policing costs, a cost the province estimates at $233 million annually for 291 municipalities. The Town of Barrhead, as well as the county, fall under this category.
Under the proposed funding model, rural municipalities will be expected to contribute between 15 and 70 per cent of their policing costs. The move is expected to save the province between $34.9 and $162.8 million annually and cost the county between $165,305 to $771,109 annually.
The government, as part of the United Conservative Party’s (UCP) election platform, is consulting municipalities on the proposed funding model through a series of webinars, as well as a survey designed to help the province fine-tune a new policing funding model.
The problem with the survey Oyarzun said, is that many of the questions and answers seem to be designed to elicit one response — that municipalities are OK with paying for a portion of their policing costs.
In response, councillors instructed Oyarzun to complete the survey, as per her recommendation, using a “zero per cent” increase as the only acceptable answer as a guide.
The problem she said is that the province is asking municipalities to answer the survey before it gives them all the information they need.
“There are a lot of things that are still unclear about what the province is proposing,” she said. “So how can we be expected to make an informed decision when we don’t have all of the answers? Especially on the cumulative effect. My concern is that the government is looking at this in isolation.”
Oyarzun added the policy is unfair to rural municipalities, noting that although urban municipalities with populations over 5,000 are responsible for 70 to 90 per cent of their policing costs they also receive Municipal Policing Assistant Grant (MPAG) funding to offset the costs.
For municipalities whose population falls between 5,001 and 16,666, the base grant is $200,000 plus $8 per capita. Municipalities with populations between 16,667 and 50,000 receive a $100,000 base grant and $14 per capita. Cities with populations over 50,000 receive $16 per capita and are eligible for a Police Officer Grant (POG) of $100,000 per officer for 300 officers.
“We wouldn’t be eligible for any of those grants despite being expected to contribute,” she said.
Another concern, Oyarzun said, is the funds the government collects from rural municipalities wouldn’t go towards funding policing, but general revenue.
“Here we would be putting money in with no added value,” she said.
Nor would municipalities have any say in how the community is policed, interjected reeve Doug Drozd.
“It is only by the goodwill of the detachment that we have some say in the way policing is done in our area,” he said.
Oyarzun added the model has the potential of putting a strain on the Intermunicipal Collaboration Framework (ICF) agreement negotiations.
“There is some talk that a couple of the urban municipalities are asking their rural counterparts, as part of the ICF negotiations, to contribute towards policing costs,” she said, adding while it wouldn’t apply to Barrhead because the town is under the 5,000 population threshold, it could apply to the negotiations in Westlock. Municipal Affairs has pegged the population of the Town of Westlock at 5,101.
“We [rural muncipalities] are not supposed to be contributing to that because we would have our own expense, so why would we cost-share that way and still pay our own?” Oyarzun asked.
ICF agreements are established between neighbouring municipalities on a wide variety of issues that impact both communities such as recreation, shared water and sewer to joint land planning. These agreements are mandatory under the province’s revised Municipal Government Act (MGA). The deadline for coming to these agreements between rural (county) and urban (town) municipalities is April 1, 2020. Rural to rural municipalities have until April 1, 2021.
Oyarzun added the other question rural municipalities need to ask the province is where the extra money to pay for policing will come from.
As mentioned previously, the province expects rural municipalities to contribute anywhere from 15 to 70 per cent of their policing costs.
“Remember the province has said they would be redeveloping the assessment model for the oil and gas sector. We’re anticipating that will drop [linear] assessment which will further drop our revenue,” she said.
Oyarzun added this is especially the case when the county is having trouble collecting tax revenue from companies in the energy sector as it is.
She also noted the amount they would pay for policing does not take into consideration the approximately $91,000 the county already pays for law enforcement services for bylaw enforcement as well as the enhanced policing position, namely the student resource officer and the $1,000 contribution to the Barrhead and District Victim Services Unit.
“Council would have to look at whether they wanted to continue to pay the $91,000 on top of the new amount or make cuts in other areas I just mentioned. So instead of enhancing response to rural crime, it could end up having the opposite effect,” Oyarzun said.
Reeve Doug Drozd said that from his standpoint, the province was treating rural policing costs they did the school and senior housing requisitions. As such, municipalities should add it as a line item on resident’s property tax bills.
“But for some reason, you aren’t allowed to show it as a line item on the people’s tax notice. Why is that?” he asked.
Oyarzun said she didn’t know, nor did she know if the province was forbidding the practice or just recommending it be omitted.
“If they are telling us we have to pay for something that isn’t in our control, damn right the residents should have the right to know about it,” Coun. Darrell Troock said. “That is something people need to know come election time.”
It is interesting to note that one of the things the UCP campaigned on is that they would introduce no new taxes, but that is essentially what they are doing, Oyarzun said.
“By transferring the cost from their pocketbook to ours, where are we going to come up with that money? By increasing taxes,” she said. “We have to remember it’s the same taxpayer.”
