Codiac Regional RCMP Superintendent Todd Shean wants to add two new police officers to his complement of 143 members.
 
Sharing some of the details of the budget he's presenting to the municipal councils of Moncton, Dieppe, Riverview in coming days, Shean unveiled plans to add one police officer dedicated to domestic violence and another to tackling property crime through Codiac's crime reduction strategy that more closely monitors the small segment of the population responsible for most of a community's crime. Those measures add one per cent to his total budget.
 
Shean said the big drivers in the estimated 8.67 per cent increase to the total budget are a result of sharply raised rents and a change to the budget process itself.
The City of Moncton had not raised the rent the Codiac RCMP was paying for its Moncton headquarters since 2001 and this year the city said it was time to bring the rent in line with commercial rates in the downtown.
 
That translates to a rent increase of about a quarter million dollars this year.
 
Shean emphasized the projected overall budget increase of 8.67 per cent is very much subject to change. Beyond what councils might say about the budget, it was also calculated on the assumption the federal Treasury Board will raise RCMP salaries nationwide by 3.25 per cent this year, a number Shean said might prove higher than the actual increase.
The biggest issue to deal with in the 2008 budget was the disappearance of much of the surpluses that had been part of past years' business planning.
 
"We used to use that surplus in the budget as part of revenue," Shean said.
 
Last year, in attempt to make budgeting more predictable, Codiac RCMP announced it would attempt to make significant budget surpluses a thing of the past.
 
In the previous two fiscal years, the authority had registered surpluses in each year of more than a half-million dollars.
The surpluses occurred in the past because the police force could only offer rough estimates on what its costs would be for the coming year. Now the force has a much more accurate view of what kind of money it will need to operate for each year. While that is good news overall, for this year that decision, "has come home to roost," he said.
 
"Last year we had a $602,000 surplus. This year it's $196,000. Right off the get-go I have to make up almost half a million dollars just to pay for what the municipalities already have here in Codiac."
 
In another change, Codiac is looking to make a change to its community policing program.
 
"Last year Moncton's Councillor (Brian) Hicks asked at budget time 'does it always have to be a police officer?'" Shean recalled. Taking Hicks' suggestion, Codiac's chief is asking to create a community policing program officer who would be a civilian member at a lesser pay scale. "That would allow us to repatriate one full fledged police officer (for other police work)," he explained.
 
Referring to last week's release of a policing resource study by Statscan, Shean said he was proud of the way his forced stacked up to comparable police forces in the region, in terms of cost and how they addressed crime. (See the table attached).
 
The Codiac Regional RCMP pays the provincial RCMP for some administrative matters like recruiting, health, training and staffing, the police officers looking after those things are not part of Codiac's complement, which helps explain why Metro Moncton has the highest population per police officer in the Statscan.
 
"People say we're expensive but when you compare us apples to apples we're good value for dollar and there's a good job being done by the men and women of Codiac."
The board of the Codiac Regional Policing Authority has approved Shean's budget, but now it must be ratified by the three municipalities. "Everybody realizes that the increases that are reflected here are necessary." Kent Robinson of the CRPA said yesterday.
 
As well, the three municipalities have to work out a new cost sharing agreement, as the three year deal they were working under expired last month.
 
Quick facts
 
The following comparisons of similar sized Maritime police services comes from Police Resources in Canada 2007, released last week by Statistics Canada:
 
Per capita costs:

Codiac Regional RCMP................................$166
Fredericton Police .......................................$195
Saint John Police ........................................$259
Halifax Police ..............................................$290
Cape Breton Regional Police .......................$188
 
Population per police officer:

Codiac Regional RCMP..................................724
Fredericton Police .........................................514
Saint John Police ..........................................434
Halifax Police ................................................450
Cape Breton Regional Police .........................613
 
Crime rate per 100,000:

Codiac Regional RCMP...............................9,514
Fredericton Police ......................................8,002
Saint John Police ......................................9,737
Halifax Police ..........................................11,284
Cape Breton Regional Police .....................7,437
 
Clearance rate (measure of cases solved)

Codiac Regional RCMP ..................... 37 per cent
Fredericton Police ............................ 31 per cent
Saint John Police ............................. 29 per cent
Halifax Police ................................... 27 per cent
Cape Breton Regional Police ............ 38 per cent