Rhino's Rambings - Fairford Street Blues

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

It is by far the biggest shocker of the 2023 City of Moose Jaw budget discussions.

The failure of the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners (MJBOPC) to get the budget passed funding the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) without just a minor wimper.

Gone are the days when former Councillor Brian Swanson would raise objections about the “unsustainable” amounts the MJPS was asking for. Despite the absence of Council’s biggest naysayer the MJPS budget was sent back for review.

Despite the seeming loss of the MJPS’s largest pain in you know where for passing their budget the Board of Police Commissioners - who have three members of Council onboard - are having one heck of a time getting their operating and capital budgets passed.

I have already personally had more than a few people tell me the MJPS’s presentation to Council was a major theatrical performance.

For the naysayers I have spoken to it is nothing short than another Emmy winning performance written by Steven Bochco.

Crime is described it seems to the people I talk to as rampant and out of control all around budget time - the critics in the community are telling me.

In some ways I can see how the annual appearance by administrative members of the MJPS is nothing more than a great theatrical appearance with the final outcome being a large cheque presented to the actors. A bit of a final curtain call and the performance is over for another year.

Well that didn’t happen this year.

A back to back five percent plus year over year increase is not going to be an easy repeat performance.

In fact this year has been a relatively tough year for the MJBOPC when it comes to getting the MJPS the cash that they want.

A simple 16 page budget document given to the MJBOPC by the brass at the MJPS - the number of pages in the budget presented to the MJBOPC by the MJPS came out of an Freedom of Information (FOI) request by this publication - which seemingly had five people (three from Council and two civilians) sign off on the largest taxpayer operating expenditure in the city.

Well this year it has not been that easy.

And the main reason I see behind it not being so easy is what is going on in the world economically and how that sadly is impacting the City of Moose Jaw.

Gone are the days of boom and double digit returns on the stock market. Much of those long term investments are barely below the rate of inflation - if they are not in black. The bear is out in the streets and taking no prisoners.

The impact has been massive in the short term for the City of Moose Jaw who have gone into the equities market with the City’s reserves.

And yes it is true the City is here supposedly forever but at the same time there is a constant need to use the proceeds of our reserves to help finance capital projects but also subsidize the operations of the City including the financial obligation to the MJPS.

With a major worldwide recession looming there is no way Council can politically justify raising taxes to the level needed to fund it all and that includes the money we give to the MJPS.

There are some out there who have no problem giving the MJPS wheelbarrows full of $100 bills so long as they don’t have to fund what they still call the Multiplex. But the problem is those dollars were committed before over half of the people on Council now were elected.

So that leaves the dilemma - where do you find all of the cash the entire 2023 Budget is calling for?

As such the 2023 Budget as well as the MJPS Budget both failed to pass within the times set out by Administration to get it all done well before Christmas.

For the MJPS this year’s budget I am told and also do believe has led to a major push to get the funds they are requesting with as little fuss and maintaining the maximum public support possible.

In my opinion the MJPS are running a bit of a PR campaign during the City Council’s budget deliberations.

Don’t believe me?

Well take a good look, I mean a really good look, at one of the major incidents the MJPS released on their Facebook page this past week.

The MJPS released “further details” of the October shooting incident and minor manhunt on their social media.

It was enough to have at least one local news source proclaim the photos and details were all new when all it would take to disprove this observation is to do a simple Google search and discover this information has been previously released to the Regina media - most notably the Regina Leader Post and CJME - on the weekend it occured.

Because it was on a weekend I am guessing the local media did not get the memo.

Am I somehow saying this was not a serious incident?

No not at all.

What I am saying though is the details were actually released weeks ago. And when it comes to the on-going court proceedings it is really not relevant for a police release of the incident.

Now this is just my opinion but whether or not you believe me the MJPS’s social media strategy is hoping in this day and age you forgot these details or they are now trying to reinforce them at budget time.

If this is what is happening all I can say to the top brass at the MJPS is Quit it. Quit trying to milk the system and see the populace as fools.

This is not how you build respect in the community.

It is like going fishing with dynamite. You might land the fish but at the same time you destroy the environment that breeds the fish you are seeking on an annual basis.

It usually takes a few years to destroy the fish and their habitat but after landing last year’s five plus percent increase the MJPS have found the environment to dole out large increases just isn’t there only lone year later.

Council, in their need to toe the line when it comes to property tax increases, has gotten a lot smarter.

There was even one of those “secret meetings” Moose Jaw is so famous for.

You the ones that Moose Jaw voters rejected just a few years back when it came to securing funding for the Cast Iron Water Mains replacement project a few years back.

Don’t believe me?

Well I submitted a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request why the MJPS was meeting in-camera with the Executive Committee of Council on November 14th and it was all about the 2023 Police Budget request.

The FOI does not show exactly what was said. But it could well be argued the November 14th secret discussions were in fact a bit of a dress rehearsal for what was publicly presented at the November 22nd special Council meeting dealing with the 2023 Budget.

And yes, you read it here, the largest portion of where your property tax dollars are spent in the City’s operating budget was discussed and hashed out in private.

It begs the question was there any difference between the two presentations?

And if so did Executive Committee get the same doom and gloom presentation as the regular public got on SHAW 10 just over a week later?

Or did the general public get the theatrical version made for TV on November 22nd?

To get the money they are requesting in my opinion we need to ask how much of that public presentation - if any - was all an act?

I can tell you that I had four people more or less ask me if Council was under attack or something because one of the officers showed up in his tactical team uniform - albeit without the tactical helmet or rifle.

All I could do was sit there and listen only to see a few days later the same officer showed up in more regular police traffic patrol attire when it came to the public information session about what to do with the “deathtrap” intersection of 9th Avenue NW and the TransCanada Highway.

So who knows perhaps they have something there.

All I can honestly say is when I was at the November 22nd presentation I did for more than awhile have the opening of the now defunct Hill Street Blues series rolling around my head.

I will even admit I temporarily started to match up the personnel from the MJPS, who showed up in their annual show of strength looking for their annual budget, to characters on the Emmy winning show.

For those of you unfamiliar with the iconic TV series I’ve thrown in the Season Four intro below to demonstrate.

So What Is This Really All About???

Well it all comes to money.

What Council is looking at are the funds transferred by the City for the approved strength of 64 officers the MJPS versus the actual number of officers the MJPS has on the payroll.

The number varies between three and five officers.

It is all dependent upon the number of suitable officers found and the number they can get not just into the Saskatchewan Police College in Regina but also who actually make it through the training.

And yes there was at least once officer weeded out for what was circulated amongst the rank and file of the local force as let go for urinating where he was not supposed to.

That is one spot that is funded but at the same time nobody is there to collect the paycheque.

So where does the money for approved but not hired officers go?

Well, despite what some might think and tell me, it does not go back to the City of Moose Jaw.

But rather the funds go into the MJPS’s accumulated surplus account where it can be used - after approval of the MJBOPC - for other things.

And yes you read that correctly the money, unlike government departments, does not go back to the City of Moose Jaw but stays with the MJPS.

The surplus was growing and then took a drop when the MJPS with no fanfare started to fund a Tactical Team that all of a sudden popped up in their news releases well after the initial start years ago. The initial funding a reliable source told me was in the $100,000 range.

Now did the MJPS use their accumulated surplus for that? Sorry I cannot say as they have never ever said so.

But what really matters right now is Council is asking that the funding for new officers not go into the MJBOPC budget’s accumulated surplus to be used whenever the MJPS asks for it but rather the funds be used to reduce the MJBOPC’s budget request until the officers are actually hired and on board.

When you look at the 4 - 3 vote to send the MJBOPC’s budget back to find savings in two areas it needs to be pointed out and remember the fourth vote came from the only permanent member of the MJBOPC - Mayor Clive Tolley.

Although the Mayor said nothing in the public discussion on November 22nd his voting against the budget by a Commission he is a member of is indeed a shocker. The Mayor would know what happened with the budget for the MJPS and yet despite what he heard voted to send the budget back.

It is why during last week’s Council discussion surrounding funding the MJPS that you had city manager Jim Puffalt saying there was already precedent set when Council used the funds set aside for three City solicitors (while the positions were vacant) to fund operations.

Is this an example of the City Manager entering the debate? Perhaps.

But what it does show is that at least one senior manager in Administration wants to see the funds used temporarily for something else rather than just go into an accumulated surplus account to sit as a reserve fund for the MJPS.

Despite what is being said in the community NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with what members of the MJPS are paid. That amount has been set out on collective bargaining and a contract that is not up for renewal this year.

It is what you call a red herring argument.

But in my opinion it is why all of a sudden you are starting to see the MJPS put out the fuzzy stories and the toughness of the job kind of stories right now.

It is in my opinion all about garnering and gaining public support to have Council pass the budget submitted by the MJBOPC and quit being such sticks in the mud about it.

This is all against the backdrop of a Council under enormous stress to knock the projected property tax increase down.

Council surprisingly said no and sent the MJBOPC budget back for another look.

It is also why I asked a newly elected Mayor Tolley just over a year ago for more details about the MJPS budget - let us just say a flock of birds flew by and tweeted to me.

Those efforts did garner one document that for years until Chief Rick Bourassa took over the reigns of the MJPS the media and public received.

So what happens next?

Well the MJBOPC have to review and reconsider the 2023 MJPS budget as requested by Council.

Given their Facebook page all of a sudden exploding with news items- I have a personal opinion they were released to gain public support - plus the need to avoid the public starting to ask question the MJPS must respond quickly.

My prediction is be ready for the budget response by the MJBOPC regarding the MJPS 2023 Budget reconsideration as early as Monday or Tuesday early am at the latest.

Be prepared for some sort of a giveback of $20,000 - $40,000 to City coffers.