Four Calgary city councillors are calling for an urgent discussion Tuesday around providing support to find funding options to close a $28 million hole in the Calgary Police Service (CPS) budget.

Late last week, Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld detailed the potential impacts to services as reduced photo radar options have created the budget gap. He said that the shortfall would put added pressure on front-line service members.

The four councillors — Couns. Sonya Sharp, Andre Chabot, Jennifer Wyness and Terry Wong — hope their colleagues will agree that they should discuss how city administration could help the Calgary Police Commission (CPC) and CPS determine potential funding options.

They wanted to add a Notice of Motion for technical approval to discuss police funding options at a March meeting of council. The item was added to the agenda.

“There’s a significant financial shortfall that exists because of the lack of ability of utilizing a tool that we previously did to encourage compliance to the laws, which generated revenue,” Coun. Andre Chabot told LWC.

“But at the end of the day, if that revenue opportunity isn’t there, it has to be made up somehow.”

Coun. Chabot said that Calgary city council can’t direct the commission to do anything, but they can request that they take certain actions. He said they can only look at how they can help with solutions.

The group pushed out a media release early Tuesday that asked for city admin support to help CPC determine funding options. They request that report to come back to a full city council meeting on March 18.

“The safety of Calgarians is non-negotiable,” said Coun. Sharp.

“We cannot allow frontline policing to be compromised due to policy changes outside of our control. The numbers show that photo radar reduces serious collisions, injuries, and fatalities. If these restrictions jeopardize public safety, we need to push back.”

City may need to provide more cash: Chabot

Coun. Chabot said that if there are sufficient funds in the Fiscal Stability Reserve, and it doesn’t negatively impact the City of Calgary’s credit rating, it may come down to cover the shortfall with one-time surplus cash.

“But at the end of the day, this is a base budget operating need,” Chabot said.

“So, by doing this, we’re creating essentially a bow wave for the future. We’ll have to make it up in base budget funding somehow in the future.”

The motion also asks for a report on Calgary’s speed and traffic calming measures, including annual costs and comparisons to photo radar efficacy. They also want CPC to examine severing ties between the CPS budget and fine revenue.

Coun. Chabot said this is ultimately a question of public safety and hopes the provincial government will see it that way.

“I welcome the ability to defend the statistics that we have that shows just how effective this tool has been in reducing the number of serious injuries, serious incident injuries, the number of fatalities, the number of pedestrian injuries, the reduction in the speed of vehicles as a result of this enforcement tool,” he said.

Coun. Chabot said the province should be open to allowing photo radar with fine revenue being deployed to improve public safety on the roads.

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong agreed.

“Traffic enforcement should never be about generating revenue—it should be about keeping people safe,” said Coun. Wong.

“This is about making sure our officers can do their jobs effectively and that Calgarians feel safe in their neighbourhoods.”

The Government of Alberta eliminated the use of photo radar on highways and residential streets, unless it was in a school, playground or construction zones.

CPC thankful for council’s willingness to work with them

In a media statement published after councillors approved a future discussion on how the City of Calgary could help CPS, the Calgary Police Commission said public safety is a top priority and that there’s a commitment to delivering police service in the city.

“Our Commission also believes that traffic enforcement should only be used to promote public safety, and a year ago we adopted the position that fine revenue should be removed from future police budgets to ensure that safety remains the only focus of enforcement activities,” the media statement read.

“We look forward to working with Council to try achieve this goal as well.”

The province shares with municipalities 40 per cent of traffic revenue from fines, according to the CPC. Calgary city council has traditionally used this funding to reduce the tax dollars need to pay for policing, they added. The portion the province takes from the Calgary police fine revenue jumped six years ago, from 26.7 per cent to the current 40 per cent.

That also left the CPS with a $13.1 million hole in its budget.

The CPC said they will continue to work with all parties to manage the impact of reduced traffic enforcement.

“We also recognize that Calgarians and Calgary Police Service employees have clearly told us that there is a need for more staff to police our city, so we are doing our best to try manage this situation without impacting existing staffing levels,” they said.