‘Big hit’: B.C. municipalities facing large backpay bill to RCMP

Municipalities across B.C. could face thousands, if not millions in backpay for RCMP services in their communities.

Some cities say they expected the costs years ago and others are stuck searching for ways to come up with the money.

The federal government is passing on unbudgeted and unaccounted-for RCMP costs to municipalities.

“We’d heard that this might happen for the last couple of years but we were quite surprised to get a bill. We’ve got lots of things on our budget and that wasn’t one of them. It’s going to be a big hit to our budget,” said Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff.

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Communities like Osoyoos are having to pay over $150,000 in retroactive RCMP payments, as its population grew above 5,000.

“We then had to pay 70 per cent, so knowing that we had put money aside each year to try and cover that. We have to be prepared; that’s why we have a five-year plan and a 10-year plan,” said McKortoff.

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Last year, 20,000 RCMP members signed a collective agreement with retroactive pay going back to 2017, meaning communities would have to pay that back.

However, some Okanagan towns started planning ahead years ago, including Oliver, where they raised taxes by nine per cent.

“We’re using that nine per cent extra revenue extra to spend on capital projects and we did that for five years in a row to get ourselves ahead of capital projects,” said Oliver Mayor Martin Johanson.

“When all that money had to transition to RCMP we would sort of have a transition period moving forward for a few years where we wouldn’t have to worry about extra taxation.”

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Vernon’s mayor Victor Cumming says the amount they had to pay for RCMP was higher than initially expected, but money was put away early.

“Policing is a quarter of our tax budget so we know that. It’s in the millions and depending on the year, more than $10 million sneaking up on 12. We’re getting great service, so that’s part of why it’s not a difficult argument for community members,” said Cumming.

Local mayors say they have been lobbying the provincial and federal governments to ease the transition for municipalities with growing populations.

“Your 4,999 it’s 30 per cent, it’s 5,001 it’s 70 per cent and for small communities it is brutal. You’re looking at a $700,000 annual increase in operational costs,” Johanson said.