COURTENAY, B.C-Courtenay’s municipal government won’t be changing how much money the city spends on police in 2018.
During the council meeting yesterday evening, final approval was given to the City of Courtenay’s spending on police services.
The decision was made to hold the line on the spending, instead of a rise or a drop.
Agenda documents from the Monday meeting state that the total contract expenditure is $4,887,300 based on a total of 27.42 RCMP members for Courtenay.
According to Courtenay mayor Larry Jangula, a rise to meet the requests to raise the amount from the local detachment could have resulted in a five or six per cent property tax increase.
During discussion, Councillor Erik Ericksson raised the idea of a regional-funded police service, instead of contracts from every community.
While Jangula believed that could be a good idea, he didn’t think it would happen.
“It’s a great discussion, and it would hopefully help with the irregularities in paying,” said Jangula.
“If we all paid equally into it, we would all get more, and it would certainly benefit us, who are paying the most. I don’t think that’s a possibility. It’s a great thought, but not likely.”
Cumberland, Comox, and the CVRD also have contracts with the Comox Valley RCMP.
