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M.L. receives nearly million dollar grant for policing

Nov 9, 2016 | 6:26 AM

The City of Meadow Lake has received a nearly million dollar grant from the provincial government to assist in subsidizing the costs of its RCMP.

The contribution of $770,000 from the provincial Enhanced Community Policing Grant will help fund seven city RCMP positions. Diana Burton, city manager said the grant covers 45 per cent of the RCMP budget.

“We are forecasting that our overall RCMP budget for 2016 is $1.686 million,” Burton explained. “This includes our contract with the RCMP whereby we pay for 13 municipal police officers, as well as the two full-time and one-part time city staff members who work at the detachment in an administrative capacity.”

The seven officers the grant helps fund are tasked with focusing on crime-prevention to help build a safer community.

According to the grant information package, reducing the victimization and sexual exploitation of children through the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, combatting organized crime and gang activity through the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU), and reducing the number of serious collisions and fatalities on Saskatchewan roads through increased traffic safety enforcement are just a few crime-prevention initiatives the grant helps fund.

“Community safety and well-being across the province, but particularly in the North is a priority for the Government of Saskatchewan,” Economy Minister and Meadow Lake MLA Jeremy Harrison said in a news release on behalf of Justice Minister and Attorney General Gordon Wyant. “The additional RCMP resources provided through the Municipal Police Grants are incredibly important to families and residents of Meadow Lake and area.”

Mayor Gary Vidal said when the city passed the 5,000 person threshold in the last census, the model of how the city pays for policing drastically changed.

“We went from a per capita formula in which we paid roughly $250,000 a year for our policing based on having less than 5,000 people, to having a contract with the RCMP which means we pay for 70 per cent of the cost of the members assigned to the city staff which instantly changed our policing costs from about $250,000 per year to about $1.5 million a year,” Vidal said.

Realizing this was a huge challenge for the city, the provincial government and city administration negotiated grant money.

“This is a huge asset to our community because it would have been really difficult to go from paying $250,000 per year to $1.5 million almost overnight,” Vidal said. “The City of Meadow Lake is appreciative of this support from the province because without it, we would be facing really significant challenges on how we manage our policing.”

The funding is part of $14.2 million provided to municipalities for 125 targeted police officer positions across the province.  According to the news release, more than $109 million has been invested in community safety province-wide through Municipal Police Grants since 2008-09. 

It added The City of Meadow Lake has received more than $3.8 million since 2011-12.

 

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.