The Surrey Police Board’s role is to determine what is required for adequate and effective policing and to complete the Surrey policing transition, then draft a provisional budget that estimates what this will cost. Council’s role is to find funding sources for policing from provincial contributions to support the policing transition, reserves it earmarked for building SPS, carry-over unspent money from this year’s policing budget and, potentially, a modest property tax increase.

In preparing an initial draft of the budget, the Board understood that Council’s approval of the draft budget is not automatic. We anticipated ongoing dialogue and working collaboratively with Council to review the draft budget, similar to what occurs with other municipalities and municipal police boards. Unfortunately, the Mayor appears to want to take a different approach.

We hope that she and Council reconsider. The Board has requested a joint meeting to review the draft budget and the availability of all or some of the $69.9M in funding that would avoid a property tax increase.

With all of the things happening in the City—including public safety concerns about extortions and Mayor Locke’s call for 150 additional police officers to counter extortions—the people of Surrey will want to understand how these will be resourced and to see their Board and Council working together to ensure the policing budget meets their policing priorities.