Rhino's Ramblings - 16 Pages The Police Budget

By Robert Thomas Opinion - Commentary

“Have you seen what the cops are asking for now? And have you gotten anything more about their budget?” I was asked as I stopped in for coffee late Thursday afternoon.

The people who were out for coffee had just read on Moose Jaw Today the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners had just approved what they saw as yet another whopping 5.49 percent increase request by the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS).

Yup it is enough to irk more than a few that in a few hours, in a single afternoon there is - according to Moose Jaw Today - another 1.86 percent added to your final City tax bill.

It is a pattern that has been in many people’s opinions going on and on and on it seems year after year from the powers to be with the sky is the limit.

As I was out enjoying my coffee I had to think about the email I had received the day earlier in relation to my appeal of a Freedom Of Information request from the MJPS and Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners for more details of their present budget.

In a review the Information and Privacy Commissioner had denied more details from being released because the information of in-camera meetings (where last year’s budget was discussed at least in part) is allowed to be discussed behind closed doors away from the prying eyes of the general public and reporters like me.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner’s hands were tied because the Act which governs his department states if another Act - in this case The Police Act 1990 - says something can remain hidden - for specific reasons - then it can remain hidden.

As part of the legislation you cannot even have a peak at the agenda because from that you can surmise what happened or rather what was discussed at the meeting.

But despite not getting even a look at the agenda of the MJPS’s 2022 Budget the report from Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner Ronald J Kruzeniski did have a few good tidbits in it. Tidbits which certainly helped with my understanding of the MJPS’s budget process and helped further confirm other things I have suspected.

But more about that later….

The Privacy Commissioner did however make some recommendations to the MJPS and the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners.

The recommendations are screenshotted for you below.

Before I get started on breaking down the recommendations that although I requested a review of both the actions of the MJPS and Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners that only the Board chose to respond.

Their response was based upon The Police Act 1990 makes them solely responsible for the MJPS’s budget not the MJPS.

There is a seeming intertwining of responsibilities for the MJPS’s budget - something that relates directly to two of the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations.

It was something the Privacy Commissioner noted at length in his final report. The reminder was next time the Chief or someone he has delegated - I assume in writing - needs to provide a response.

The first recommendation is to deny access to two records.
The first is 16 pages given to the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners - or the budget documents provided by Chief Rick Bourassa.

Additionally there was the denial of three pages of minutes taken from the in-camera meeting where in a couple of hours at best 22 percent of total City of Moose Jaw tax dollars are spent.

The other part of the recommendation involves the division, or rather what I saw as the appearance of the lack of it, when it came to the mechanics of how this (and presumably others) FOI request was handled by the MJPS.

To give you a short explanation I asked the MJPS for their budget documents and they did the allowable thing and passed the request off to their employers the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners.

It was in my opinion sort of like Caesar washing his hands of it and passing it on to someone else to deal with.

Then all of sudden I receive the response not back from the Board of Police Commissioners but from the MJPS using an email address I did not supply to the Board of Police Commissioners but rather is a private one.

It really made me shake my head that the personal information the MJPS had on me could be used in an arms length fashion by the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners. I thought this had to be an invasion of my privacy - sadly it is not.

It all has to deal with how The Police Act 1990 interprets who is an employee of the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners and how the legislation surrounding LA FOIPs define separate entities.

But what it did however is garnered two recommendations from the Privacy Commissioner about the MJPS and the Board of Police Commissioners when it comes to sharing services or resources such as the same Freedom Of Information Coordinator who happens to be a MJPS police officer.

And what they really mean is the Privacy Commissioner has recommended both parties put in writing what is delegated and how it will be handled.

In my opinion a partial victory of sorts given The Police Act 1990 forbids everyday people - like you and me - from finding out what truly goes into the MJPS’s actual budget.

But Back To This Year’s Budget

With that said as I spoke to people at coffee they raised concerns that I am sorry I had to tell them I am not allowed to look into really or ask questions about it I suppose because of the restrictions in The Police Act 1990.

In my opinion a major blow to transparency and accountability.

One of the coffee goers asked me since the Moose Jaw Today story mentioned the MJPS was short five officers last year and the money was budgeted what happened to those funds?

All I could tell him was sorry I could not find out and in my opinion and my guesstimate likely into some internal reserve in the MJPS’s budget. Other than that all I know is the money was transferred by the City into the MJPS’s budget.

I was asked why the Moose Jaw Today story did not have any discussion about the City hiring Commissionaires to do a night patrol and be the eyes and ears of the MJPS.

This was a question I felt confident to answer and say the patrol had yet to be put on the street and any data collected.

“So when they go full time the police are going to pay for that out of their budget?” I was asked.

All I could respond was it suppose to be part of the regular budget discussions and my guess is paid for out of the City of Moose Jaw’s 2023 Operating Budget.

“So what happened to the money for not hiring enough cops? Can’t they use that?” I was further asked.

To that all I could further answer was there is no way for me to find out because of the The Police Act 1990.

“That’s bullshit” the coffeegoer told me.

All I could do was shrug my shoulders and simply shake my head.

Other aspects of the MJPS’s budget the coffee crowd asked me about dealt with the new fangled gizmos the MJPS is asking for in record inflationary times and the looming recession.

“Why spend the money now?” is what I was specifically asked.

I suppose it is something asked all of the time when it comes to taxpayer’s parting with their hard earned cash.

But once again all I could say is I no longer receive any information from the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners, don’t attend their meetings nor even know when they meet, and as such likely knew less about the MJPS’s budget than they did.

All I could say is in my opinion the Budget is not very transparent and exactly what initiatives the MJPS is undertaking to fight the rapidly exploding drug problem and the petty crimes associated with it I don’t have a clue about.

Back To The Review

But with that said the Request For Review I submitted did lay down some important facts and top of those being the MJPS’s Budget is not the responsibility of the police but totally the responsibility of the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners.

Given this perhaps the anger I am hearing is best directed at the five individuals who make up the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners as the budget is not the MJPS’s budget but the Board’s budget.

The Board makes that clear throughout their submission to the Privacy Commissioner - I encourage people to read the decision in its entirety once the Privacy Commissioner publicly posts it.

With that said the Review did give me a valuable insight into the Moose Jaw Board Of Police Commissioner’s budget process and that is in my opinion the Board is making their final decision to spend between 22 - 25 percent of the City’s Operating Budget on less than 20 pages of paper.

They are seemingly not using the mountain of background and accounting papers which you would see in a City budget and their final decisions are hammered out in a couple of hours.

I say this based upon the fact that until January of 2022 the Moose Jaw Board Of Police Commissioners were not receiving monthly updates as to the amount of each budget line. Something they had been receiving regularly from the former chief.

For myself the revelation within the Privacy Commissioners review that the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners only received 16 pages and there were three pages of meeting minutes formulating the budget tells me volumes.

For my own personal look into the MJPS’s budget there only being 16 pages tells me that the information I received from confidential source(s) was likely the entire budget presented to the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners.

In my opinion it explains to me why Chief Bourassa - a former employee of the Regina Police Service - would ask that force to investigate me when I released information from those pages in a previous Rhino’s Ramblings column.

I now believe I have a much better, if not full picture, of the budget and the budgeting process between the MJPS and the Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners. Or maybe rather a better look at where they are spending tax dollars when it comes to battling crime in the community.

And also for me it explains the age old divide between the administration at the MJPS and the front line officers.

But whatever happened with the investigation of my writing and researching conducted by the RPS?

Well I submitted an LA FOIP to the Regina Police Service on that one and after an extensive search the RPS could not find the records.

Sigh…..

Added Note - The full decision will be posted on the Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner website by October 26th.