Councillors with the rural municipality of Weyburn agreed at their August monthly meeting to pay another $3.05 per capita for annual RCMP service to residents. They didn't like it but they will pay it, said RM administrator Kim McIvor.

The 15 per cent increase, announced by the province in July, brings Weyburn RM's total policing cost to $19,915 for 2003. The RM paid $17,340 in 2002 and $13,534 in 2001.

Prior to 1999, when a cost-sharing agreement was negotiated by the Saskatchewan government, rural municipalities paid nothing for policing.

According to a news release from the Saskatchewan justice department, the provincial government will spend $91 million for RCMP policing this year, recovering approximately $13 million from municipalities through cost redistribution.

The department said the formula is a way to provide quality cost-effective policing for communities under 5000 in population, and to rural residents.

In a letter to the RM, deputy justice minister Doug Moen told Reeve Dan Sidloski that Saskatchewan benefits from the professionalism of the RCMP as a provincial police force.

The justice department said 145 rural municipalities will see an increase of five-to-20 per cent in costs this year while 23 rural municipalities will see an increase of 20-100 per cent in costs.

The president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) said, in a telephone interview Friday, the province has not upheld its part of the 1999 cost-sharing agreement.

Neal Hardy said the province promised to pick up the first $15 of RM policing costs; agreed to pay RMs some of the fine revenue collected, as smaller urban municipalities already receive; and said it would phase in the higher share of costs for RMs over a 10-year period. Hardy said revenue from fines in rural areas is not a lot but every bit helps.

The increases are unacceptable but there's nothing much the RMs can do, said Hardy. It was a unilateral decision on the part of the province, he said. SARM has been trying to talk to the province about it for three months, he said, adding that a consultation group on policing costs, that included RMs, has been disbanded.

At the very least, the province could tell the municipalities in January or February how much they have to pay so they're not getting this new bill after they've already set their mill rate for the year, he said.