The Saskatoon Police Service presented a preliminary budget to city councillors on Wednesday, with police laying out their current needs ahead of budget deliberations next month.
Coming to council chambers more than a month earlier than normal, Chief Troy Cooper was asked to give as much information as he could to help the city grapple with its funding shortall.
Saskatoon police are asking the city for an additional $7.6 million, down from $10.86 million the service was originally going to request before it was asked to tighten its budget.
The overall budget submitted is $121,393,300.
Cooper used the opportunity to pitch a 6.7 per cent increase to the budget, with some big numbers of his own to show the need for more police resources.
Police expect to receive about 150,000 calls for service through 2023, an increase of 10 per cent compared with 2022. Social disorder calls — labelled as suspicious persons, public intoxication and disturbance — accounted for 23 per cent of calls to police last year.
"When we look at the growth of the city we would expect to see a growth in calls, but the number of calls vastly exceeds what we anticipate simply based on the growth of the population," Cooper said.
"In about the middle of 2021, we started to see this real increase for demand for service, and that trend has carried on right up until this year."
According to Cooper, social disorder calls have risen 79 per cent since 2015.
"So far in 2023, a full one-third of all of our dispatched calls fall into these categories," Cooper said.
Cooper said police are responding to an average of two-and-a-half overdose calls every day.
Use of weapons in Saskatoon are also on the rise, with Cooper noting an average of five weapons calls per day in 2022, which is expected to rise roughly 17 per cent by the end of the year.
Cooper said people carrying weapons isn’t just due to criminal activity or gangs, but from the increased dangers of homelessness in Saskatoon.
"I can tell you that living rough or living in encampments is absolutely unsafe, so as that population grows, so does weapon possession," he said.
Inflation was one of the biggest pressures on the budget, according to the budget document Cooper referenced.
Saskatoon police want to create nine new positions in 2024 — four on patrol, three for the community mobilization unit, one timekeeper to assist with payroll and one reintegration worker to assist with physical and mental health for those returning to work.
To help with costs, police will delay purchasing more body-worn cameras until 2027, instead of purchasing all units by 2025.
For the 2025 budget, police intend to hire 10 new officers as part of a proposed 5.64 per cent increase to its budget.
