Weyburn city council approved an overage on the 2019 budget for the Weyburn Police Service of $194,410, at their meeting on Monday evening conducted via Zoom.
The matter came to city council as under the province’s Police Act, the Weyburn Police Commission cannot authorize spending outside of the set budget amount.
The overage on the budget included a number of factors, including less revenues than expected from fine revenues and grants, and more expenses than budgeted.
The extra expenses came from being over-strength due to an upcoming retirement, and unbudgeted wage and resources for a homicide investigation.
Finance director Laura Missal explained that the homicide investigation cost $60,000 over the department’s budget.
In addition, said Mayor Marcel Roy, the department had a contract that had to be settled out, and the fine revenues were over-estimated.
He noted the commission has asked they be updated on a monthly basis instead of on a quarterly basis, and this will enable the department’s new chief, Jamie Blunden, to keep a close eye on the expenditures.
A question had been asked if former chief Marlo Pritchard’s departure had any impact budget-wise, and commission member, Coun. Mel Van Betuw, responded, “Former chief Marlo Pritchard left in September, and it had nothing to do with the overage. I think acting chief Rod Stafford worked with the budget he had and had no bearing on the overage. There were some one-off costs that we’re not going to get every year.”
“I would concur,” added Coun. Jeff Richards. “I don’t the departure of chief Pritchard had any impact on this.”
Council approved a motion to cover the overage through general operating funds and reserves if needed.
• In other council business, council approved the purchase of a new refuse collection truck, an item which had been tabled twice before for additional information.
An extensive breakdown of the costs of refuse collection for the City was provided, plus a breakdown of costs for replacing the service body of the refuse collection truck as opposed to buying a whole new truck and equipment.
As the costs to replace the service body and switch it out with the current equipment would be around $239,930, compared to the cost of $307,000 for a new truck, the recommendation was to proceed with the new truck. Council approved this purchase.
Mayor Roy pointed out the funds will not be coming from the City’s operations budget, but from the fleet budget, which is separate.
“We are in good shape to run the City. I don’t know what the future numbers will bring to us, but we need to carry on. There are a lot of other projects that we’re working on. I would support this moving forward,” he said.
