Saskatoon police requesting $3.9 million budget increase

Watch the video above: Police want more money to help keep crime stats on its downward trend.

SASKATOON – Saskatoon Police Service is asking for a $3.9 million increase over last year’s budget.

Chief Clive Weighill said the bump is essential for keeping the city’s crime statistics on a downward trend.

But the falling crime rates are costing taxpayers.

In 2004, the police budget was $43 million. With a population of about 196,000 people, the budget cost the average taxpayer $219 per year. By 2013, the police budget had ballooned to $72 million, costing taxpayers $292 each – a 33 per cent increase.

“The majority of our budget is going to be for wages and benefits, because it’s personnel that we have to take care of,” explained Weighill.

“We’ve come down substantially in crime, but we still don’t want to stop the good trends that we’re showing here,” he said.

The total net budget for 2014 is just over $76 million, or a 5.5 per cent increase.

Police want to bring in five new constables, one missing person coordinator, and one human resources clerk. Weighill said two of the new constables would likely be assigned to schools.

“We’re concerned that our school resource officers are getting overworked. Each officer has about 20 schools,” said Weighill.

The new police headquarters is scheduled to open in the new year. It will be about four times the size of the current police headquarters and will cost about $500,000 extra per year to operate.

Mayor Don Atchison also believes the budget increase will continue to help lower crime statistics.

“You see and you read, where other communities have cut their policing, and crime rate goes up,” he explained.

Now approval is up to city council, which will look at the budget in early December.