During budget deliberations by North Battleford city council last week, councillors learned a move by RCMP to route all calls to a call centre in Regina should solve the chronic clerical staff shortages the detachment has experienced.
"What isn't new in this budget is that we continue to deal with staff shortages at the detachment," said Susan Degenstein, director of human resources.
That's why last year's number of $491,281 in wages and benefits for the non-police staff is $70,000 less than was budgeted, she said.
"In the last five years we have only run one four-month span where we were at our full time staff complement."
That was about two and a half years ago.
In August of 2013, three people quit in a two-week span, said Degensteinm leaving the department with only three full-time staff.
"They have done exceptionally well using their casual staff and overtime just in order to staff and keep the response centre running," said Degenstein.
There are now four full-time staff in place and two more in the queue who have met their security clearance.
"Something has to change over there," said Degenstein, "and I have had some very good dialogue with the inspector to see if we can change this up."
In an interesting turn of events, said Degenstein, it came to light at a recent staff meeting that the RCMP are going to move toward a province-wide call centre to be located in Regina, which is already answering calls from North Battleford after office hours.
It's 12 to 18 months out, said Degenstein, but is expected to be more efficient than the current system.
Degenstein says it will mean the clerical staff at North Battleford detachment will be dedicated to true clerical work such as data entry, transcribing, serving member's phone calls and providing counter service. They will no longer have to staff a response centre, which should make it easier to find staff. There will probably be no need to have 24 hours shifts, either, she said, which is another difficulty in keeping staff.
As for the RCMP staff costs, City office manager Gail Adams says costs will definitely be over budget for 2013. This last quarter included a bill for 2,600 hours overtime.
This year's budget for the RCMP contract is $3.9 million, which allows for 35 members at a five per cent increase in the contract with RCMP. This is something the City has no control over, noted Mayor Hamilton.
Fire Chief Albert Headrick addressed steps his department has taken toward improving public safety. He hopes for provincial support of a peace officer enhancement program in the government's March budget, which could mean some capital expenses could go ahead.
The municipal enforcement program is not new to Headrick. It originated in Alberta, and he came to North Battleford in 2013 from Crownest Pass.
Staff who used to be called bylaw officers have had new uniform and vehicle markings denoting municipal enforcement, have been engaging the community, patrolling school areas and have handed out significant fines in enforcing the City's heavy truck bylaw, said Headrick. With provincial support, they could also do traffic control using radar, and a memorandum of understanding could be signed between the City and the RCMP for clarity and direction.
He assured council members they would not be carrying weapons or tasers, but could carry pepper spray.
