For years, the Regina Police Service (RPS) has been the most funded entity within the city’s operating budget, and that will continue for 2025.
On Thursday, council approved a $122.4 million operating budget as part of the 2025 budget deliberations.
“We’re not asking you for more money to hire more staff this year,” Chief Farooq Sheikh told councillors Tuesday while presenting his budget. “We can’t do anything about inflation. That’s out of our hands. We can’t do anything about pay rises.”
“All we’re asking here is operating costs and salary costs. We’re not asking you to give us any more money to increase our establishment,” he added.
Police operations account for 17 per cent of the entirety of Regina’s tax funding.
When comparing that to other cities in western Canada, RPS fares pretty well.
Saskatoon Police have an operating budget of $141 million – 21 per cent of that city’s 2025 budget.
Winnipeg Police stands at 24 per cent while Edmonton Police accounts for 28 per cent of the overall city budget.
Calgary Police sits around 11 per cent of its total budget.
“We’re doing everything we can to be as efficient and as effective as possible,” Chief Sheikh said.
Cost savings
In their budget presentation this week, RPS outlined more than $800,000 in additional cost efficiencies since administration released its proposed budget last month.
The change reduced the city’s mill rate about 0.26 per cent.
Some residents who spoke at council believe RPS continues to be overfunded.
“I want this to be a safe and secure city for everybody,” Shawn Koch said. “But we have to have the conversation about where safety and security comes from.”
“It’s not more walls, more cameras, more surveillance, more security or more police,” he added.
Koch called for the reduction of the police budget to be reallocated to other social programs to help Regina’s most vulnerable.
“[Safety and security] is full bellies. It’s roofs over houses. It’s a strong education,” he said. “This is how we prevent crime. The police do not prevent crime.”
Council passed the RPS budget 9 – 1. Only Ward 8 Coun. Shanon Zachidniak voted against supporting the $122 million dollar ask. Coun. Jason Mancinelli had temporarily stepped away from the meeting at the time of the vote.
Instead, council looked to funding for the Regina Exhibition Association (REAL) and civic operations for their biggest cuts.
“REAL came to us and said, ‘We’re going to come back, we’re going to save some money,” said Ward 10 Coun. Clark Bezo. “Police came back to us and saved money.”
“The city has come back to us and said, ‘We’re going to raise the taxes. We need more money,” he added.
Chief Financial Officer Daren Anderson challenged Bezo’s notion adamantly.
“If [administration] had done the same thing [police] did, we would have asked you for a 13 per cent mill rate increase,” he responded to Bezo. “Then came back here and told you we saved you 10 per cent. But we didn’t do that on the council floor. We did the hard work”
“To come here and tell me we have 75 per cent less of an ask than police and insinuate we are not doing our job,” Anderson said before being cut off by Mayor Chad Bachynski to stop a debate between council and administration.
Councillors approved an amendment Thursday morning directing administration to find $1.55 million in further cost savings and efficiencies to cut the mill rate increase a further 0.5 per cent.
