The St. Albert RCMP will add four front-line officers in 2011 thanks to a budget approved by city council Monday night.
The "boots on the street" translation will be one more constable on duty at any given time, said Insp. Warren Dosko. The detachment currently has six front-line officers available to respond to calls at any hour. The new recruits will bump that up to seven.
"From a community perspective I think it's great to see," Dosko said. "Those four front-line officers are really needed to help address the demand for policing so that when people want police, the police are available to come."
Adding the four officers will cost $363,000 next year.
Council debated the request briefly Monday evening before passing the request in a 6-1 vote.
"As long as we're asking our RCMP to respond to every call … we need to provide them with the resources to do it," said Coun. Cathy Heron.
Questions
Coun. Malcolm Parker questioned why the force needs more officers when St. Albert is ranked as one of the safest cities in Canada. The force is also working on a review that's expected to be completed next fall.
St. Albert's crime statistics tend to be stable from year to year, Dosko reported to council, but he insisted the new officers are needed now.
All of council agreed except for Parker.
"It's called proactive so I think we need these officers on the street," Heron said.
Dosko said an expanding city brings increased policing demands that aren't captured by crime statistics, such as vehicle collisions.
Numerous sources of data suggest the officers are badly needed, agreed Mayor Nolan Crouse.
A report compiled by city staff shows that St. Albert spends $76 per resident on policing, the lowest of any large or medium-sized Alberta city. Medicine Hat spends the most, at $303 per resident.
Statistics on crime severity show St. Albert is among the safest in Canada, according to an annual ranking by Macleans magazine. But the city spends less than half the average per capita compared to the other top 10 cities and has the fewest number of officers per capita when compared to other Alberta cities, Crouse said.
"Some people start to say, well we're the safest city anyway so it doesn't matter but to maintain that degree of integrity in our community safety requires us putting time and money into this," Crouse said.
Dosko compared policing in St. Albert to a duck on water, calm on the surface but "paddling like hell" below.
"We have this very calm appearance and a high level of safety but underneath the water there's an awful lot of work being done by an awful lot of people to maintain that appearance of calm," Dosko said.
More deskers
Besides new officers, the police received approval to hire a civilian to manage its vehicle fleet and its evidence exhibits. This will save the city $42,000 in salary while freeing up a police officer to fill one of the new front-line duty spots. The other three will be new hires.
The force will also spend $56,000 to add a municipal enforcement supervisor to "address serious workload pressures."
"If we just keep paying for policemen and we don't ensure we have the proper support … then the policemen end up doing administrative work back in the office," Dosko said.
Other police budget requests — two file reviewers and a satellite office — were approved but won't get funding until council hears and approves more detailed plans. It was Crouse's idea to put these strings on the funding, worth a combined $269,000.
"I'm not yet comfortable or convinced on those and I've got to get a better understanding," he said.
Another police priority — a new overflow parking lot — survived a late challenge by Parker, who tried unsuccessfully to have the $220,000 capital project moved to the unfunded list.
Developing the parking lot adjacent the detachment would only happen once the police know what's happening with their satellite office, since leasing this new space could help alleviate the parking crunch at the detachment, Dosko said.
