Surrey Police Board administrator Mike Serr unveiled details of the Surrey Police Service’s provisional budget for 2024 on Thursday, Jan. 25 in light of increased confusion over how many millions of dollars are involved in the city’s policing transition, now in its sixth year.
The provisional budget was submitted to the City of Surrey on Nov. 30 but its authors have yet to receive a response from city hall.
“To this day we have not heard whether our budget has been accepted yet,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we can have this budget approved and move forward because any delays delays the transition moving forward, and those delays to the transition can be expensive for the city of Surrey.”
It’s costing Surrey taxpayers $8 million per month to keep the RCMP and SPS running simultaneously.
“I believe that the public has a right to know what the SPS requires in 2024,” Serr said. “This budget is dependent on the winding down of the Surrey RCMP to complement the growth of SPS. In order to contain costs, we need to work with our partners in the RCMP and the City of Surrey on eliminating the overlap in administrative costs that come with having two police agencies working within the city.”
A majority of Surrey council is opposed to the RCMP being replaced by the SPS. Serr said he hopes this submitted budget will give council “confidence in the numbers associated with moving this transition forward.
“It is my hope that this transparent budget process will give clarity, that it will given comfort to the residents, to the businesses of Surrey.”
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Following a technical briefing for media, Serr held a presser to break down the details of the $142M provisional budget for 2024. He said the city’s total available funds for policing in 2024 is $337M.
Serr said if SPS 2024 provisional budget is approved by city council it would be constitute 42 per cent of funds available to Surrey for policing this year. This includes $30 million from the provincial government ($150 million over five years).
Under SPS operations, $102,761,570 is for salaries and expenditures and $16,758,285 is for “other operating expenditures,” for a total $119,519,855 for total SPS operations. Equipment and capital expenditures are marked at $6,636,383 and $15,354,815 is for the Policing Transition Project Fund, for a grand total ask of $141,511,053 for 2024. In 2020, the City of Surrey earmarked $63.68 million as a one-time capital project fund for the transition, intended to support the SPS’s startup costs and build IT infrastructure required the SPS to replace the Surrey RCMP as the city’s police of jurisdiction, which Serr expects will occur within two and a half years.
Surrey Police Board administrator Mike Serr revealing SPS provisional budget details for 2024. pic.twitter.com/gjAbYQIsET
— Tom Zytaruk (@tomzytaruk) January 25, 2024
Seventy-two per cent of the provincial budget is for salaries and benefits. Twelve per cent is for other operating costs, with $5.99 million for IT maintenance and contractors, $1.2 million for fees to train recruits, and $2.25 million related to the vehicle fleet, with 42 already purchased and 25 more to be bought in 2024. The remaining 16 per cent is for other equipment including uniforms, firearms and ammo, and the policing transition project fund.
Serr said the SPS’s “assumed” deployment for 2024 is to see 203 more SPS officers deployed, to a total of 408, with a hiring target of 180 sworn officers – 45 recruits and 135 experienced officers – to a strength of 526 by the end of 2024, “making up approximately 67 per cent of the city’s targeted police staffing number of 785 in 224.” It also calls for 23 more civilian staffers to be hired, to a total of 81 by the end of the year.
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Serr said he has until March 1 to make any additions or changes to the provisional budget and the City of Surrey has until May 15 under the Community Charter Act to approve and finalize its 2024 general budget. “I cannot impose this budget on the city.”
He added he has the ability, if council doesn’t approve the SPS’s provisional budget, to ask the director of police service “for that to be adjudicated,” but he has to wait until the city provides its response. “I am hoping we can resolve this between the board and the city, and work together. But I do have that opportunity in the Spring.”
“I can’t ever say it’s foregone conclusion,” Serr said. “It was made law that the SPS transition is to move forward, that SPS is to be the police of jurisdiction. I have full confidence in these numbers.”
The Now-Leader has reached out to Mayor Brenda Locke for comment.
Coun. Linda Annis says the SPS budget should be approved.
“Mayor Locke has had the budget since November and has not made an effort to deal with it, so making the budget public gives our community the numbers that taxpayers need to better understand the transition process that is underway,” Annis said Thursday. “The budget presented by the SPS makes sense and fits within the overall policing envelope we have for our city. Running two police departments costs our taxpayers time and money, and we need to get on with this transition which the province has made law. The SPS is becoming the police department here in Surrey, so let’s get on with it and build the very best police service.”
Asked what he’ll do if Surrey council doesn’t capitulate, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth on Thursday told reporters “I personally don’t get involved. There are legislative procedures and protocols that are in place that are set in law and policy as to how budgetary issues around policing are in fact dealt with. So for example there’s Section 27 of the Police Act and if there’s a dispute in the budget that can be referred to the director of police services, has authority to make a decision based on based on the submissions received by, you know, the city as well as the police.”
Farnworth said the SPS provisional budget for 2024 “can proceed in a way that doesn’t impact the taxpayers of Surrey, which has been something that the mayor has been concerned about.”
“This idea that there needs to be a tax increase because of the transition, the budget shows the path forward in a way that is responsible, respectful of Surrey’s budgeting – their three-year fiscal plan as it relates to policing – and that there’s not a need for more tax increases which the mayor has been talking about.”
In December the city launched a $500,000 PR campaign against the “NDP police transition” that includes social media posts, a direct-mail householder, and electronic billboard displays that, under the heading “NDP police transition WILL COST YOU MORE,” claims it will cost $464 million more over the next 10 years, and forecasts a MASSIVE DOUBLE-DIGIT tax increase meaning LESS $ for schools, health and transit.
