Westlock County has taken the first step to pull out of an agreement to fund an extra RCMP officer.
At their June 28 meeting councillors voted 5-2 to give one year’s notice to the Minister of Justice and Solicitor General to terminate the county’s enhanced policing agreement with the RCMP.
The county currently pays approximately $144,000 annually to fund an extra officer at the Westlock RCMP Detachment. A three-year agreement for the service is set to expire Aug. 1, 2017 and one year’s notice is required to terminate it.
The officer is supposed to focus efforts on enforcement in the county, however during a briefing to council, assistant CAO Sue Oberg said the county has little, to no control over the officer.
“There’s no coordination between that member and our peace officer,” said Oberg.
“We’re not the boss. Westlock County pays for the enhanced member, but we have no control.”
Oberg added the county-employed peace officer generated $42,685 in revenue, issued 268 tickets and opened 288 files in 2015. The RCMP officer reports to the Westlock detachment commander and the municipality has no way of tracking what revenue the officer generates, or how much work they do.
Councillors discussed the possibility of adding a second peace officer instead of the RCMP member, but made no decision. Administration will bring back a report to council giving a full annual cost analysis of the county peace officer including salary, equipment, vehicle and gas.
Then-CAO Duane Coleman said by giving notice it allows the county the opportunity to break the contract, but their decision isn’t necessarily final.
“Giving your year’s notice now, it gives you a year to look at it and decide what’s the best bang for your buck,” Coleman said.
“The community may tell you that they like having one more police officer in the community and they’re willing to pay for that.”
Should the county opt out next August, they’ll only be responsible for half of the year’s cost, roughly $77,000.
Coun. Ron Zadunayski said while he wasn’t in support of the enhanced police agreement in the first place, the county never asked for the officer’s report, which according to their agreement, should be provided to the county on request.
“There’s a report the officer has to fill out every day to indicate what he did and we’ve never asked for it,” said Zadunayski. “Maybe we should have been doing that.”
