Victoria-Esquimalt Police Board isn't happy about Victoria council's decision to send the policing budget back to the drawing board with a request to stick to inflation-plus-1%.
A letter signed by co-chairs Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins and Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, told Victoria council the reduction they are looking for would result in unacceptable cuts to staff and services which would significantly jeopardize public safety.
Desjardins, Board lead co-chair, says following a high degree of oversight the board approved a 6% hike to be sent to city council for approval -- an amount that would provide the resource levels necessary to provide adequate and effective policing service:
" The board really doesn't take this lightly. We go through a significant process to come up with the budget, and so every angle is looked at before that budget even goes to council. So again, this is concerning, it's come back to the board now and we will be looking at it in terms of what options we may have. "
Desjardins says at the end of the day Victoria council doesn't accept the original request the board can go to the province for a ruling, but that takes time, and VicPd is operating short already:
" You know we need resources, we need some certainty around resources to plan and to go forward. So this is not something we're going to take lightly, we're going to really review it."
The Police Board also points out VicPD has not has an increase in police officers in more than 8 years, while the communities have continued to grow.
The letter reminds council that over the past few years VicPd's budget, as a percentage of the City of Victoria's total operating budget, is on the decline, and that council has rarely allocated new growth revenue for policing, preferring to allocate those increases to taxation.
While Desjardins acknowledges her own council rejected a VicPd request for 6 more officers last March over concerns none would be assigned to their municipality, and instead would be working in the downtown core.
The department pulled school liaison officers as a stop gap measure, and asked for the matter to be reviewed by the province’s Police Services Division. It's been in their hands since August with no decision yet.