Saskatoon police, library board make budget presentations to council

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Saskatoon police Chief Troy Cooper brought any hopes of replacing the department’s aircraft with unmanned drones crashing back to Earth during a budget update delivered Wednesday to city council’s governance and priorities committee.

Asked by a few committee members about the prospect of replacing the roughly $1 million-a-year plane with drones, Cooper said the manned vehicle continues to do work drones can’t, calling the officers who staff the plane at any given time “frontline responders” just like any other officer on the shift.

While he said larger U.S. cities and the RCMP in Canada are starting to employ drones as a response to calls, he suggested Saskatoon police will not do so anytime soon.

After all the talk about drones, Mayor Charlie Clark — who sits on the board of police commissioners— took a moment to emphasize that drones are not being considered as a replacement for the police plane.  He cautioned his council colleagues that a move to such technology would carry significant implications, and would require careful consideration.

Cooper’s comments came during an update on the police service budget, in which he revealed the service will seek city funding increases of 6.74 per cent in 2024 and 5.64 per cent in 2025.

The increases would cover inflation, pegged at a combined $7.4 million over the two years, and 10 new jobs, including four new patrol officers and three for the community mobilisation unit.

Cooper said police need the additional staff to address sharply increasing calls for service. While he noted a large proportion of these calls relate to “social disorder” — things like public intoxication or people loitering or sleeping in businesses and apartment doorways — he said officers are also increasingly encountering weapons and other potential threats.

During questions from Coun. Mairin Loewen, Cooper said police are in talks with the province to fund more Alternative Response Officers (AROs).

Asked if AROs might be an option to replace some of the new patrol officers, Cooper said police view AROs as a good option during daytime hours, around areas with high foot traffic, but they are not the right personnel to respond to situations involving violence or potential violence.

Council will get a final presentation from police during formal budget deliberations later next month.

LIBRARY PRESENTS PROSPECTIVE BUDGET

The Saskatoon Public Library expects to come to budget deliberations in November with a request for council to approve mill rate increases of 3.49 per cent in 2024 and 3.54 per cent in 2025. These proposed increases would work out to an additional $8.17 in 2024 and then another $8.57 in 2025 for an average home.

Under provincial legislation, the library sets its own mill rate, but must seek approval from city council.

Library CEO Carol Cooley said the increases will help deal with pressures ranging from maintaining aging buildings to increased security costs amid rising numbers of patrons with mental health or addictions issues.

The proposed library budget includes $210,000 in each of the two years toward the library’s new central branch to be built downtown. That project is delayed while the library board engages a management firm to help get the project’s costs back in line. The new building is still expected to open in 2027.

The library’s proposed increases would also support hiring three full-time employees in 2024 and four in 2025. Among these would be a security manager for evenings and weekends and an “outreach worker” for the Dr. Freda Ahenakew branch.

Cooley clarified during questions that library outreach workers may direct people in need to appropriate services. They also do things like helping newcomers to Canada who come to use computers, and may need help filling out forms.

After the update, Coun. Troy Davies said in a “normal world with normal budgets” he’d be likely to support the library’s proposed mill rate increases. However, he said he hears regularly from residents who are “scared” about the prospective tax hikes in the next city budget.

With that in mind, Davies said he would not support new hiring in “most” areas when it’s time for final votes on the budget in November.

Coun. Hilary Gough noted the library’s “very reasonable” budget is proposing increases “significantly smaller” than the requests coming from any of the city departments who made budget presentations to council thus far this year.