SUBMITTED FILE PHOTO Medicine Hat police chief Andy McGrogan is seen in this file photo.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
Cuts to certain law enforcement revenue streams in the provincial budget will have an impact, but it could have been much worse, according to Medicine Hat police chief Andy McGrogan.
“Is it the worst news ever? No, but it’s not the best news,” he says.
The province’s Municipal Policing Assistance and Police Officer grants will remain stable, which McGrogan says is a welcome development.
“We could have used a bit of an increase there, but they’ve kept the grants in place at least … so that’s good news,” he said.
The province is increasing its share of fine revenues to a 50 per cent split with municipalities, up from 42. This will provide a blow to city finances that will ultimately impact the Medicine Hat Police Service’s funding, McGrogan said.
“If you do the projected fine revenue, it’s about an $800,000 hit to the City of Medicine Hat,” he said. “We’d all be fools not to think it’s all linked and related.”
Cuts to biological services, which includes DNA sampling, have “flown under the radar” and could have significant consequences for police work, says McGrogan.
“That’s a $100,000 hit that’s going to have to come from somewhere,” he said. “So either we take less samples or modify how we’re doing that, but it’s still going to be a hit on our budget if we’re paying for costs directly.
“This means public safety, at the end of the day, suffers, because there’s not as many DNA samples going to the data bank.”
Sending fewer samples will undoubtedly affect the “robustness of the DNA bank,” making it more difficult to solve certain crimes.
McGrogan says these two significant cuts mean the MHPS will have to get “more innovative when it comes to revenue streams.”
On a potentially positive note, the province has pledged $5 million toward the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team.
“We still don’t know what that means yet,” said McGrogan. “If it means enhancing our crime-fighting teams down here in Medicine Hat, then that’s great.”
A marijuana enforcement grant that had been established in the wake of cannabis legalization is getting eliminated, but McGrogan says this will have no impact on MHPS operations at all.
“It’s a non-issue for us,” he said. “At this stage in the game, cannabis has not affected community safety in Medicine Hat.”
The main concern with cannabis legalization – especially with the legalization of edibles – is detecting impaired driving, but that’s more an issue of technology than enforcement.
“We need instruments eventually that will be able to test drug impairment as simple as the ones we use to test alcohol impairment,” he said. “Until we have them, there is a safety void out there, but this enforcement grant doesn’t change any of that.”
