Regina police not cutting staff despite $1M funding loss, says chief

The Regina Police Service now has $1 million less to work with this year but police Chief Evan Bray says fat will be trimmed without cutting staff or affecting services.

Layoffs are not an option, Bray said.

"Reduction in staff equates to a reduction in service delivery," he said. "When we're talking about community safety, that's not something that we're interested in doing."

The City of Regina has been forced to reopen its municipal budget following a $10.3-million funding shortfall after the provincial government scrapped its grants-in-lieu program. One of those budget revisions involved allocating less money to the police service than previously approved.

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Bray said 89 per cent of the police service's$84.5-million budget is spent on human resources, which leaves the rest to find efficiencies.

So, the department looked at its capital rather than operating budget, deferring upgrades to internal infrastructure, such as that for online reporting.

Looking to reserves

Bray said the police service is looking at using about half of its reserves, or $428,000, to alleviate the burden of the cut on its already"pretty lean" operating budget.

Regina police policy is to have at least $400,000 in reserves at all times.

"We don't know what kind of disasters or catastrophes or emergencies we might be facing in a year," he said.