RCMP Request for Budget Boost Held Over to Wednesday
Prince George, B.C.- Prince George RCMP Superintendent Warren Brown says despite having approval to hire 3 more officers last year, the detachment has been running between 114 and 117 officers.
“We can only do and deliver with the resources we have” said Supt. Brown to Mayor and Council in his budget presentation to Council, “To be efficient, we focus on what’s important.”
Retention has been a major issue for the local detachment over the past year. Supt. Brown says he has no say on promotion which may require a member to move to another locale, but he has made it clear that any requests for transfers will be denied. He says he lost his entire senior management team over the past year because of promotion.
He is asking for approval to hire two more members. New constables may not be on board until the fall, so their impact to the budget would not be a full impact until 2018.
The request for the budget enhancement will be discussed at the meeting on February 1st.
Comments
Losing all his senior staff???? That’s not good.. What about sick time? What is being done to help solve that problem?? Better management?? have they done some sort of assessment to see how the members’s lives could be made better??? Hard to believe, but with only six months of training, one is put right into a job that pays 60 grand a year to start with
The problem with sick time is this, if you give someone X number of paid days sick time per year, they’re going to take them. Teachers, nurses, Civil Servants, they max out more often then not. Are they sick or are they just taking it because if they don’t they only get a percentage of their payout upon retirement?
We need a better system. What that is, I don’t know. :)
That may be but I know that I wouldn’t want their job. They’re trying to do an often thankless job with one hand tied behind their backs. It has made them very good at what they do and that’s more than can be said about a lot of police forces.
I think we need four or five more just on traffic detail, let alone having enough boots on the ground to cover vacations and sick leave. I don’t think they are asking too much at all.
When you start getting overworked members, more are going to request stress leave or just burn out. That’s not good.
“We can only do and deliver with the resources we have”
Policing costs have gone up, but they’re still working with an 80’s budget and told to do more with less.I really wish Bob Paulson could get it through Justin’s head that Mounties are way behind OC in budget and Justin would grow a pair and give them a huge increase, which would signal the Province to do the same. Until such time as they do, members are left to react to crime instead of kicking it’s butt, both in drugs and other areas.
But politicians being what they are, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
People crying that the police aren’t doing enough, go bug your MP’s, MLA’s, City council.
The Province contracts with the Federal Government for the RCMP. Prince George then pays 90% of the policing costs in PG and the Feds or Prov pays the balance.
In effect we are working with the same number of police, and the same city population for the past 10 years more or less. So, you could make a case that the number we have now is sufficient. Perhaps there is some way that we could reduce some costs, as it is we pay for 63 support staff, plus the salaries, benefits, etc for the RCMP personel even though their contract is negotiated with the Federal Government.
Lets keep in mind that we paid $40 Million plus another $30 million more or less over 20 years to build the fancy new police station. So that accounts for some of the reason we are a little strapped cash.
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