Surrey council is expected to order the fledging Surrey Police Board to stop hiring officers or taking on additional spending.
On Monday, council will be presented with a staff report outlining two options for policing in the city.
Option one is to maintain the Surrey RCMP as “police of jurisdiction” under its existing contract. The second option is to continue with the creation of the Surrey Police Service.
Mayor Brenda Locke, whose party holds the balance of power on council, has stated consistently that her goal is to keep the RCMP and halt the change to the municipal force.
The report to council is the first step in that process since she took power on Oct. 15 — beating Doug McCallum who started the municipal force and was opposed to the RCMP policing the municipality.
Under option one, staff will prepare a plan to be presented to Solicitor General Mike Farnworth explaining how the Surrey Police can be dismantled and the RCMP kept in charge of policing in the city.
The Surrey Police and its oversight Surrey Police Board were created with provincial government approval, and can only be disbanded by the same authority.
Option one will also require staff to “issue a letter on behalf of council to the Surrey Police Board to pause all new hiring and expenditures pending further council direction.”
The Surrey Police is in Phase 1 of its three-phase implementation, with its patrol officers working under RCMP command. As of Oct. 15, the police department had 296 officers, with 154 deployed on the front line. Another 28 recruits were in training and 57 civilians were on staff.
The police board had planned deployments of up to 35 additional officers every two months. Phase 2 would have seen Surrey RCMP officers working under Surrey Police command and Phase 3 would have seen the city force in total control of policing. This was forecast to begin in July 2023.
In 2022, the city is expected to spend $195 million on policing in the city, including $72.5 million for SPS, $96.7 million for the RCMP and $25.6 million for city police support services.
The report states, “there is currently an unfavourable variance for policing operations forecast to be $20.6 million by year end. Key contributing drivers of the unfavourable forecast include a higher than anticipated number of SPS members that are not deployed into front line policing. As a result, the city is paying for administrative overhead in two police agencies.”
According to the staff report, a timely decision from Farnworth on whether to reverse the SPS mandate was vital.
The RCMP is contracted to provide 734 police officers in Surrey, and at the moment that includes the 154 city police officers working within the RCMP.
According to the report, “while a plan is being developed and forwarded to the province for ministerial authorization, the RCMP would continue to focus on day-to-day operations with both SPS and RCMP police officers, reassuring SPS colleagues that their work as police officers in Surrey is valued and continues to be required.”
If the minister does approve the decision to retain the RCMP, it will offer jobs to all SPS officers.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
