Victoria police say budget cuts have left them $78,400 short of funds needed to cover the costs of policing this year’s Canada Day celebrations.
The police department no longer has the capacity to absorb unfunded expenditures given cuts to its budget, Sean Powell, finance chairman of the Victoria and Esquimalt police board, said in a letter to Victoria council.
“We are also facing an increasing need for patrol backfill [overtime] due to the number of non-deployable officers. This has eroded our historical ability to absorb these costs within our overtime budget.”
The average cost of policing Canada Day is $122,000, of which the city contributes $12,000. Victoria and Esquimalt provide additional funding for special duties, of which $31,000 goes to Canada Day. That leaves the Victoria Police Department responsible to cover $78,400 a year in unfunded expenditures, Powell says.
Councillors will consider the issue Thursday.
Coun. Ben Isitt, who recommended many of the budget cuts that were adopted by council, said it’s clear from the letter that there was some “wiggle room” in the proposed police budget that ended up being cut.
But, Isitt said he was not in favour of allocating more money to the police. Instead, he suggested reducing the scope of the Canada Day party area — perhaps to just the legislature grounds and adjacent streets — to lessen costs.
“If the [police] chief has determined that that level of policing is required, I personally think we need to look at potentially narrowing the geographic scope of the road closures in order to contain the policing costs,” Isitt said.
“Certainly, it’s fun having huge swaths of the downtown closed, but I’m not sure if Victoria taxpayers would support the level of subsidization needed to ensure public safety.”
Mayor Lisa Helps, co-chair of the police board, said those ideas aren’t practical and that council should cover the costs from contingency funds.
“That’s a very impractical approach because you can’t control how many people come downtown,” Helps said.
“There will probably be 40,000 or 50,000 people. They’ll come from across the region so what [do you do] shuffle everyone into a cattle pen in front of the legislature? I don’t think that’s very practical.
The Canada Day costs broadly include police and civilian overtime, supplies and logistics, and B.C. Sheriff services, Powell says.
In a related report city Director of Finance Susanne Thompson says that the police board’s position is that due to budgetary constraints the total shortfall for special events totals $135,300:
• $78,400 for Canada policing costs;
• $41,700 for providing the first three officers at permitted not for profit events;
• $15,200 attributed to all policing for military related events.
Thompson’s report notes that Victoria branded itself as a City of Festivals and a Cultural Capital as it prepared to host the 1994 Commonwealth Games and the city’s Arts, Culture and Events (ACE) division issues more than 350 events and film-related permits every year.
“We have really over the years become a city of festivals, a city of events. We’re going to have to find a solution going forward,” Helps said.
“I think if we want to continue to have a thriving, healthy, vibrant community that supports the efforts of non-profit societies that put on events without putting the non-profits under undue stress, I do think we have to find a way to fund that for this year. The contingency budget is a good place for that ,” Helps said, adding the costs should be built into the city budget for next year.
