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Police board discusses achievements and future plans

At their latest meeting, the Estevan board of police commissioners wrapped up the year and discussed the potential changes that may take place in 2020.
Police board
Police Chief Paul Ladouceur, left, and Mayor Roy Ludwig at the police board meeting. File photo

At their latest meeting, the Estevan board of police commissioners wrapped up the year and discussed the potential changes that may take place in 2020.

Looking at the 2020 crime statistics, Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur noted that numbers showing a 3.7 per cent increase on total calls for service from 8,162 in 2018 to 8,467 in 2019 weren’t surprising.

“We saw an increase to break and enters… And that’s as a result of the economy. We are seeing an increase in meth in the community… And as far as the impaired by drug (driving) there is an increase in that,” said Ladouceur.

What’s not tracked on the statistics is amount of mental health-related calls the Estevan Police Service (EPS) receives on regular basis. It was noted that 65-70 per cent of call volume is not criminal in nature and thus doesn’t get reflected on criminal statistics, and a lot of those calls are mental health-related. In the meantime, the EPS utilizes a lot of resources to respond to that.

Heading into the new year, Ladouceur said they plan to improve their procedures when it comes to mental health calls and also may consider reporting them to the public.

“We are looking at implementing a platform called HealthIM. That is a mental health assessment platform that the officers will use when responding to mental health calls. It does a very similar assessment that a physician would do at the hospital, except it’s broken down into layman’s terms and simple questions,” said Ladouceur.

The officers would complete the report on a handheld device, and it will give an assessment of possible risks and also will suggest if the individual should be transported to the hospital for further help. Besides, the report will be sent to the local health authorities, so they could be ready to take the person in if needed.

“It’s a better assessment for patients in the front line, and obviously a reduction of resources required in taking people to a mental health facility for an assessment when often times it’s not necessary,” said Ladouceur.

They are looking into involving a psychiatric professional in the future to work with the service to attend those types of calls, however, the process is still in the early stages. There are also some provincial programs that help to cover the costs that the police services can approach if needed.

At the meeting, the board also reviewed the financial statements. Once again, EPS managed to get work done below the budget. Ladouceur pointed out that the year ended with just over five million in total police expenditures, which is over $250,000 less than was allocated. But in reality, the EPS did even better.

“Every time we have something for the police, if it’s a high-vis. check stop, for example, we did about $50,000 of high-vis. check stops last year. That has to be shown in our budget. So now we are throwing $50,000 more into the police budget. What the public doesn’t see is we get that back through various provincial programs. The same goes with our officer funded positions. The same goes with proceeds of crime grants, much like the stop sign we put through the traffic safety program,” explained Ladouceur.

At the end of 2019 the actual dollar spent after the revenue that was retained through grants and funding was $3.9 million.

Ladouceur also noted that Estevan police is doing well in comparison to other municipalities of similar size across the province, being the lowest consumer of the city budget on a per capita basis.

Ladouceur also went ahead to answer the public’s question about whether or not the police get the money from tickets.

“Absolutely, the police get the money back from tickets, and why shouldn’t they? Why should the safe, responsible drivers be paying for the traffic officers to be out there? To me that should be funded by the people who choose to break traffic laws,” said Ladouceur. “So when we see those funds coming back in that goes to offset the cost of these positions.”

While operating below budget, the EPS at the same time manages to significantly and steadily decrease the crime numbers in the city. The mayor noted that some people started suggesting that since the situation in the community has changed, the police should lay some officers off. However, with provincial funding to save the local budget, the EPS would need to cut at least five positions because four of them are covered by the provincial program.

“The province sees the value in having those extra members,” said Ladouceur.

The board also noted that they are still in the process of hiring a bylaw officer. The person is currently going through the pre-employment qualification process and hopefully soon will get to the duties.

“We apologize for this, but we did go through a whole round of hiring. We had two good candidates and when we went to hire them they had other jobs. So then we had to go through the whole process again. That’s why it’s taking a month,” added Mayor Roy Ludwig.

The chief also pointed out that there was a lot of interest in the position.