The Chief of the Saskatoon Police Service welcomes the provincial government’s announcement of funding 37 frontline officers, which means he doesn’t have to ask for an extra large budget increase in 2026. However, there is an increase to the budget by about $1.6 million, mostly because of the future provincial hires.
Chief Cameron McBride presented the newly tweaked 2025 to the Board of Police Commissioners yesterday (Thurs). The City has a two-year budget cycle and 2025 is the second year of that cycle, so a preliminary budget was approved last year. He told the Board that as of the end of July calls for service had increased by 4.5 per cent and if that continues, by the end of this year, the Police Service will have had 160,000 calls for service. McBride says the Police Service has been running lean and at this point, looking at number of police per 100,000 people, Saskatoon has the lowest number of officers compared to other municipal services in the province.
The province’s funding will help boost the number of police.
Of the 37 officers funded by the province, McBride expects they will be able to hire and train 24 new members in 2025 with seven to be hired at the beginning of the year and 17 more in August, and the remaining 13 to be hired in 2026. However, he notes that there will still be an increase to the budget, explaining that the funding is in 2023 dollars to cover salary and payroll, which covers about 84 per cent of a Saskatoon officer’s salary. “In addition, the provincial funding does not cover capital or operating costs that are required to outfit our officers. It costs approximately $12,000 to outfit each new police officer with uniforms and equipment. There are also capital and operating costs associated with the vehicles we need, so the officers can do their work.”
Chief McBride is asking for an additional $1.637 million to cover these costs, along with four communication staff who were previously approved and are already working and are funded by the Saskatchewan Public Safety Association, ad an Air Support Unit pilot, who was also previously approved, as well as an accounting coordinator and a Public Safety Unit coordinator. The police budget will be discussed by City Council during budget deliberations in December.
