Lacombe is looking at hiring a new police officer as part of a multi-year effort to beef up the municipal force.
“Catch-up mode” is how chief administrative officer Matthew Goudy describes the force’s growth. “I think they were under-resourced, if you went back three years.”
The Lacombe police commission, which oversees the force’s budget, has a long-term plan to bring numbers up to the provincial average for officers, on a population ratio. It currently has about 20 members.
“Here in Lacombe, we’ve got a great police force, but they are slightly below that provincial average,” said Goudy.
“This would be the last position to reach that provincial average.”
It is proposed that $101,600 be put into the budget to fund the position, as well as pay for some administrative help. It will go before council in upcoming budget talks.
The city’s provisional opportunity budget calls for a 2.8 per cent tax rate, matching the Alberta Consumer Price Index, in keeping with a council policy.
Policing is one of the city’s bigger expenses, costing $3.4 million in wages and benefits in 2018. That would increase to $3.8 million if council approves police funding requests.
“There’s been significant growth in the last few years,” said Goudy. “With the growth of the community and some of the specialized services the force is offering now; they have a school resource officer and a crime reduction unit now that looks at the root causes of crime in the community.
“I would say the service has moved well beyond what people would traditionally see as just the enforcement avenue of policing into a community safety organization.”
Lacombe police have made a number of other changes over the last several years that reflect its growing position in the community.
At the end of 2016, the force took over its own dispatch to speed up response times.
That November, 911 calls were passed directly from the 911 centre to Lacombe police without first going through the RCMP’s communication centre in Red Deer.
About the same time, police move into a new $8.7-million station on the east side of Highway 2A.
pcowley@reddeeradvocate.com
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