Regina city council approves police budget for 2023-2024

City council passed the budget for the Regina Police Service on the first of three days devoted to debating where the city's money will be allocated for the next two years.

This is the first time Regina is using a multi-year budgeting process. 

On Wednesday, council voted 7-4 to approve a $98.1-million net operating budget for the Regina Police Service in 2023.

Couns. Andrew Stevens (Ward 3), Dan LeBlanc (Ward 6), Shannon Zachidniak (Ward 8) and Cheryl Stadnichuk (Ward 1) voted against the motion. 

Council also unanimously voted for a $103.8-million operating budget for the service in 2024.

The 2023 operating budget is a hike of approximately $5.3 million from the year before, while the 2024 budget is a hike of another $5.7 million. 

The largest cost in the police service's net operating budgets goes toward staffing, with 87 per cent of the gross budget in both years dedicated to that expense.

In 2023, the service will employee 662 permanent employees and 15 casual full time employees — an increase of eight civilian positions and 21 new sworn police officers from the year before.

One of those civilian hires will be a psychologist while another will be a physiotherapist.

Both are necessary to improve the wellbeing of the force's frontline officers, Chief Evan Bray said. 

In 2024 that will increase to 675 permanent employees and 15 casual full time employees — with one of those positions being a new civilian role and a net increase of 12 new sworn police officers. 

The vote went ahead despite calls from delegations attending Wednesday's meeting to devote funding to other issues, such as addressing homelessness in the city. 

Regina Police Service Chief Evan Bray agreed that there should be more funding toward social services to deal with incidents that should not be police's responsibility, but said that should not mean removing police funding.

"We're the one organization right now that is responding to that person we were just talking about who might be intoxicated and might need all kinds of help, not necessarily police help but no one else is there to go," Bray said. 

"So without police there to respond that becomes the problem." 

Casey Ward, president of the Regina Police Association, spoke in favour of the budget's passage and said the increase in funding and recruitment of new officers means that it will be easier to retain police in the city. 

Bray said the service needs to grow as an increase in Regina's population means more calls to service.

However, hiring more officers has not been without its challenges. The force does have equity targets that it tries to meet, although it is not there yet, Bray admitted. 

Council was also informed that the much-debated $1.6-million police plane — approved in the 2022 budget and funded primarily by the provincial government — is not yet fully operational. However, that is supposed to change soon. 

Police encountered issues with the plane's exhaust blocking the technology on the plane from capturing images. That has now been fixed, Bray said. Meanwhile, RPS has recently been given temporary clearance to use a 800 MHz radio frequency on the plane and is working to make the clearance permanent.

Bray said the training for the six members of the aerial support unit remains ongoing.