EPS welcomes city budget but warns $61.6M shortfall could affect critical technology - Global News
Policing is the biggest expense in the City of Edmonton’s draft budget and accounts for the largest portion of property taxes.
The Edmonton Police Service and Edmonton Police Commission are now responding to the city’s proposed fiscal plan released earlier this week.
“On the operating side, we’re very happy with the formula. It’s allowed us to have that long-term thinking,” commission chair Ben Henderson said at a news conference Wednesday.
The EPS operating budget is just over $675 million, and both the police chief and commission chair say the city is meeting the service’s operating needs amid rising costs.
Edmonton police Chief Warren Driechel pointed to the cost of police vehicles as one example.
“Just to outfit a vehicle five years ago was $65,000, with everything to purchase, with the police equipment. It’s now well over a $100,000,” Driechel told reporters.
While EPS and the commission welcome the city’s draft budget, they say there is a significant shortfall when it comes to keeping information technology up to date.
“It’s the one area where we haven’t got a dime, quite frankly, is in that one portfolio, and we’re gonna be making the cases we need,” Henderson said.
IT upgrades fall under the capital budget, where EPS is asking the city for almost $183 million over four years but is slated to receive only about two-thirds of that — leaving a shortfall of more than $61.6 million.
Driechel called it “constrained growth” and suggested the shortfall could create challenges as police contend with future legislation related to digital crime.
“One of our biggest corporate risks we’ve identified for years is our inability to keep up with the criminal element,” Driechel said.
“Given the advent of AI, the advent of new technologies, this has probably never been more relevant. So ensuring that we have that training, we have those tools to deal with those things — that’s becoming really, really important.”
Meanwhile, Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz suggested governments and police agencies could work together to find other ways of addressing the shortfall.
“I think this is an area where we need to come together with all of the governments across Alberta, across Canada, the RCMP, everyone, and say, are there things we can do to mitigate this?” Janz said.
The financial situation leaves EPS hoping something changes in its favour during budget deliberations before city council approves the budget in mid-December.
“When we don’t have that full capital ask, we’re now asked to reprioritize within, so we are pushing out things like our life-cycle dates on things like servers, radios,” Driechel said.
“Those are mission-critical systems that could be impacted by those kind of decisions.”
A public hearing on the draft budget is scheduled for Nov. 23, after which council will debate the fiscal plan, meaning the proposed property tax increases could change.
