Police Commission Request Funds To Cover Deficit

There is an old saying that crime doesn’t pay but in Moose Jaw the police are running a deficit.

At Monday afternoon’s regular meeting Council was asked to transfer $307,681 from the Moose Jaw Police Service’s (MJPS) capital reserves (police service building renovations) into the force’s operating budget. The Police Service Building Renovations account has $405,935 in it.

The reason for the request was to help fund a $724,192 deficit the MJPS ran in 2023.

The remaining $416,511 is being financed by the MJPS’s accumulated surplus account. The surplus account that is now dry.

Moose Jaw Police Service chief Rick Bourassa - MJ Independent file photo

There were three major reasons for the deficit.

They are not setting aside sufficient funds to cover back pay from the most recent collective agreement, underestimating overtime costs and additional costs for Commissionaires.

There was $370,000 in back pay from finalizing a collective agreement with the police association and $307,000 in additional overtime costs above the estimated amounts.

The Contractual Services overage reflects $85,000 in additional costs for Commissionaires, which relates directly to additional management and transport costs of persons in custody, the report to Council read.

Please Note - Due to a major failure in the City’s audio feed of the Council meeting we are unable to bring you any of the comments or discussion and have ran this story simply off of agenda reports.