Sitting in front of city council for the third time in less than two months, Prince George RCMP head Supt. Warren Brown was very direct on Monday with members of the finance and audit committee about his request for a boost to the police budget.
"If the community is content with a very high crime rate here, I'm content providing the same quality of policing that I have been. But if we'd like to come down to a crime rate that I'd say is consistent with other communities in B.C. that are our size, I cannot do it with the present workforce I have," Brown said.
The local detachment has put forward a plan to hire seven additional RCMP officers over the next three years, beginning with three in 2016 and two more per year in 2017 and 2018.
Bringing on three members next year would add $481,369 to their existing budget. An additional municipal staff member to handle administrative duties is also being requested.
Council approved the RCMP's $23.18 million operating budget on Nov. 25, with the intention of further discussing the additions at the next finance and audit committee meeting, which was Monday.
It was the second time Brown outlined his plan for the committee, having first come before them on Nov. 2 before bringing it to the entire council on
Nov. 25.
Brown, who has been on the job as head of the local detachment for a little more than a year, said the first thing he did when he came on board was to analyze everything the department was already doing.
"What I did is I attempted to make our resources as most efficient as I could, meeting the needs of the pressures," he told the committee.
Early on, he was faced with a variety of pressures, including a December drive-by shooting, preparing for the Canada Winter Games and murders in January and February.
But Brown said, based on his analysis, that's not all that unusual for Prince George.
"At the end of the year, here's what I'm able to say: that regardless of the efforts that the detachment commanders have made in the past, regardless of the workforce that we've had, the ebb and flow of being staffed fully and not with the vacancy patterns, we have continuously been very over-represented by crime in our community here," said Brown.
"I don't say that as a sales job to anybody here, I don't say that from a perspective of 'the sky is falling.' That is the way Prince George has been and it is the way it continues to be."
Even though 95 per cent of the community can feel safe, there is a vulnerable sector in Prince George that is contributing to the city's high crime rate, said Brown.
Proactive measures such as the units focused on downtown safety, domestic violence and mental health as well as vacancies due to parental leave, illness and injury have pulled officers from what's supposed to be a 16-member general duty watch shift.
This leaves nine or 10 people on a shift doing work that's meant for 16, said Brown, who wasn't able to commit to council when asked if adding the extra members would be an automatic correlation to a decrease in overtime costs.
Mayor Lyn Hall said he appreciated Brown outlining that not all the policing work is what can be seen in terms of police officers in a car and that he wanted to see options as opposed to just saying "no."
But a key point was that there are already not enough people to do the job, said Coun. Susan Scott.
"As tough as this is, it's an essential thing we have to address," Scott said.
The committee agreed to have staff report to council on Jan. 18 with the numbers associated with either increasing the RCMP's payroll in 2016 to include two more members and one administrative staffer or three more members and one administrative staffer. The report will also include the effect on the 2017 budget, as the full cost isn't expected to be borne by next year's financial plan.
Coun. Terri McConnachie said she agreed with a "baby steps" approach.
"We have to do something," she said. "Nothing is not an option."
Council will always be challenged with how much taxes increase, said Coun. Murry Krause, "but I can't think of a person in this community who wouldn't appreciate the RCMP officers being there when they need it."
