Oversight committee is in the works, says Mayor Menard

B.C.’s Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG) has found that the City of Merritt needs a better understanding of its policing agreement.

In it’s report assessing the city’s use and guidance of police resources under the 2012 Municipal Policing Unit Agreement (MPUA), the AGLG says the city had limited knowledge of the agreement and poor oversight over police services. 

“Overall, the city was not fully aware of the new authorities and provisions available to it through the agreement and did not utilize some of the authorities that were relevant to its current circumstances,” the report stated.

The report covers the years of 2010 through 2013, and also outlines major changes that were made to the MPUA.

“We found the City of Merritt’s senior staff and the mayor believed the 2012 policing agreement included no substantive changes compared to the previous agreement,” the report stated.

Changes to the MPUA in the area of cost containment included ensuring all policing costs a city must pay be clearly articulated to the local government. A city is also to receive early notification of changes that have cost implications.

The report stated that neither the City of Merritt nor the RCMP were proactive with regard to communicating cost changes.

The report also found that the city believed it was expected to pay RCMP costs without the ability to question them, and that municipalities are only told about changes to costs sporadically.

MPUA changes also made it so a detachment commander must inform the municipality on the deployment of officers and reasons for vacancies, as well as provide reports on complaints against the RCMP.

The AGLG found that the city doesn’t request reports on staff deployment, but does receive reports on complaints against the RCMP. These reports, however, don’t usually provide information pertaining to the nature of the complaints.

Under the changes to the MPUA, a municipality can request a directed review of the detachment to ensure its receiving value for taxpayer money. Merritt’s mayor and chief administrative officer (CAO) of the day were not aware of this new authority, according to the report.

“While communication was strong and the relationship between the city and the RCMP detachment was positive, the low awareness level resulted in limited oversight of policing services by the city and the potential for lack of accountability,” the report stated.

Merritt mayor Neil Menard described the report as an eye-opener.

“We got our wrists slapped because we, through ignorance, really didn’t know how much input we had as far as our policing agreement was concerned,” Menard said.

He said the city needs to be more involved with the detachment’s staff sergeant and E-Division on a day-to-day basis.

Menard and current CAO Shawn Boven were not in their current positions during the time period covered by the report. Dave Baker, Mike Goetz and Kurt Christopherson are the only current members of council who were also councillors during this time.

BUDGET

Little scrutiny was laid when it came to the police budget or quarterly invoices.

In the AGLG report, the city indicated that unlike other matters brought forward for council approval, it didn’t spend much time reviewing the RCMP budget, acting under the misconception that it was fixed.

The city also processed most quarterly invoices without analysis.

The report found that the city had somewhat limited financial controls on its policing costs, partially due to their assumption they had no ability to influence them.

The City of Merritt, however, can influence its policing costs by changing the number of RCMP members that serve the community and/or civilian support workers, the report pointed out.

“Prudent assignment of policing resources can have an impact on both police effectiveness and overall costs,” the report stated. “For example, there may be some administrative tasks that can be performed more cost-effectively by support staff than sworn officers.”

During the time covered by the report, the city increased its budget for the RCMP contract just once while the per officer rate charged by the RCMP increased every year despite the size of the detachment remaining unchanged.

“The city did not routinely analyze or question RCMP expenditures presented in quarterly RCMP invoices,” the report stated.

The city’s actual RCMP costs were consistently lower than the budgeted amount in the years covered by the report.

From 2010 to 2013, the City of Merritt’s total policing costs were $2.2 million on average.

The city pays for 15 police officers who work out of the Merritt police detachment and five support staff who are municipal employees.

The report found that neither the city nor the detachment could comment as to how the authorized strength of 15 officers was determined, and it seemed that a historical approach was being used. The AGLG stated that this approach doesn’t link with factors such as workload demand, community conditions or performance objectives.

The report found that policing costs for special events such as music festivals have not always been fully recovered and could be from event organizers.

The city has taken steps to do this in the time subsequent to that covered by the audit.

PERFORMANCE PLAN

Merritt Mounties were found to be lacking a bit when it came to developing their annual police performance plan.

This plan provides a framework for setting community policing priorities and monitoring the results annually.

While the report found the RCMP consulted with stakeholders — the City of Merritt, the five area bands, School District 58, Interior Health Authority, Ministry of Child and Family Development, the chamber of commerce and other business groups — it didn’t provide them with a draft of the plan to review.

Instead, the RCMP sent out a one-page summary of the plan rather than undertaking a substantive review and asking for feedback.

“This has the potential to create a gap in accountability with respect to policing priorities and in the future, the city should request a more substantive review of the detachment’s draft annual performance plan,” the report stated.

CPO

The report’s findings on the downtown community policing office (CPO) are that while it is regarded by the city and RCMP as a contributor in deterring crime, it isn’t clear if there are any set goals or objectives for the office.

“The office has not been formally reviewed to assess whether it is meeting its mandate to reduce crime and prevent crime,” the report stated.

It recommended the office be formally reviewed to assess if it’s achieving its goals.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The report’s recommendations include establishing a police committee to ensure municipal oversight, and strengthening the city’s financial control over policing expenditures by working with the RCMP to ensure appropriate allocation of resources and better monitoring policing costs.

The other recommendations are to introduce a formal process for monitoring and reporting on annual police priorities and have staff and council brush up on the 2012 MPUA to better understand the authority it gives them.

The report also states the importance of having stakeholders and residents provide input on policing priorities for their community.

In the report, the City of Merritt has responses which essentially vow to address each of the six main recommendations made in the report, including establishing a police oversight committee by the end of the year.

Mayor Neil Menard said he will be heading up the police committee.

“We’re going to use the report, we’re going to get all the information that we can and hopefully we will do all the due diligence that’s necessary to make sure we’re very much involved in the policing of our good city,” Menard said.

During the years the AGLG report covers, Merritt’s policing priorities surrounded three main issues — drug enforcement, youth, particularly with regard to alcohol abuse, and a perceived need to increase police presence in the downtown to deter vagrancy.

In conducting this performance audit, the AGLG reviewed the City of Merritt’s practices and policies, documentation and talked to management and staff. Its findings relate to the municipal policing services provided to the City of Merritt.