Edmonton Police Funding Formula (August 2023)

This topic is one that has been discussed for a few years. On August 22nd, I hosted a virtual Community Conversation and we again discussed this in length. If you haven’t had a chance to watch any of those discussions, please take some time to watch the discussion from August 22nd.

We live in a time where it feels like every issue has to be one side versus the other instead of recognizing that with almost every issue, there is nuance. The topic of police funding is one of those issues.

Everyone wants to live in a safe city. There is no single action that can be taken to create a safe city. It requires proactive and reactive solutions. There’s also no denying that policing is the most reactive of the solutions but it’s still critical. That’s why I supported the funding formula that was presented to City Council on August 23rd which was supported by Edmonton Police Service, the Edmonton Police Commission, and City of Edmonton Administration.

Approving this funding formula will not solve all of our problems. If an increase in funding to police guaranteed a decrease in crime, crime would have decreased every year for many decades because funding for Edmonton Police Service has increased every year for decades. This may lead you to ask why I supported this funding formula and I hope to answer that question through the rest of this post.

It may be worth reviewing this post from June 2020 that outlines some of my concerns with the previous funding formula. While I did support the previous formula, we started to see some gaps in the previous approach. The biggest gap for me is that the previous formula only focused on reactive solutions and not proactive solutions. So at a time where many departments were required to reduce their budget, including areas that provide proactive solutions (ex: Edmonton Public Library), EPS continued to receive ongoing increases. That meant services that could help reduce the pressures on police were being reduced in order to continue funding EPS.

That’s why I voted against the following motion back in June 2022:

“That Administration, in consultation with the Edmonton Police Service and the Edmonton Police Commission, develop a revised funding formula and related policy, and return to City Council for approval as part of the 2023-2026 Operating Budget deliberations.”

I did not support that motion as I felt that it would have been better to develop a comprehensive funding formula which would include police but not be exclusive to police. Since I was on the losing end of that vote, my job then became to try to come up with a better formula than we were currently using and that is how I approached the discussion on August 23rd.

When looking at this version of the formula, I think it is better than the previous one because it provides a few more guardrails than before. It helps to ensure that our police budget won’t be more than 30% of our overall operating budget. I believe that we need to review if that 30% measure is the right target or if that should be higher or lower. The 30% target was used because that is approximately what they were at in 2022. But we need to understand that ratio over the last 10-20 years to better inform future changes.

The approved formula uses population growth, inflation, and the operating impacts of capital for projects that are funded by the Edmonton Police Service. The formula is not required to fund any increase in salary through negotiations with the union, that will be covered separately by the City. That means any increases in funding can be used to help with any new demands.

To expand on a previous point, if we applied the funding formula to most of the departments in the City, that would result in large tax increases every year our population and inflation goes up. So if we took this year, instead of a 4.96% tax increase, it would be substantially more based on the inflation rate and the steady population growth. Since Edmontonians would be unlikely to support continuous double digit tax increases, it requires us to have a trade off discussion and that almost always results in other important core services receiving less support compared to policing.

I believe that every person I serve expects that I carefully scrutinize any budget increase, including for police. If I did not scrutinize the largest line item in our budget, I think people would rightfully criticize me. That’s because I regularly hear from people during our budget deliberations that they have concerns any time we raise property taxes and with this new formula, property taxes are going to have to increase.

With this clear action that provides stability and certainty on the reactive side, now we need the provincial government to step up and fulfill their jurisdiction because this will not solve the complex problems we are dealing with. Housing, shelter operations, mental health/addictions support are all provincial jurisdiction. If we are going to increase funding for the reactive side of things, we need them to fully fund the proactive solutions to save money, reduce the pressure on the frontline officers, and create safer communities.

I appreciate all the feedback I have received over the last few years and in particular, during this summer recess. I know community safety is the top priority. I see the posts on your community Facebook pages and know that you want to know that City Council is properly resourcing our police services. Although I believe the previous funding increases did that, this provides more certainty and stability than before and considering it has the support of Edmonton Police Service and the Edmonton Police Commission, this can hopefully provide comfort to those who have been concerned about safety in Edmonton.