With Mounties due for a pay bump, cash-strapped municipalities search reprieve from Ottawa

Constables — who account for greater than half of all RCMP officers — will see their most wage bounce from $86,110 as of April 2016 to $106,576 subsequent 12 months.

The deal additionally lays out retroactive pay will increase going again to 2017. The RCMP final up to date its wage scale in 2016. 

In response to the settlement, the charges of pay will change inside 90 days of Aug. 6, when the collective settlement was signed. It is then as much as the RCMP to make its “finest effort” to implement the retroactive payable quantities inside 270 days of signing.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) says communities that pay the RCMP for policing companies are rising alarmed over the settlement’s value.

“It is widespread coast to coast to coast and our municipalities are literally very involved, very, very involved,” stated FCM president Joanne Vanderheyden, additionally the mayor of the municipality of Strathroy-Caradoc in Ontario.

“This concern is totally pressing given the potential impacts on municipal funds.”

The RCMP is a federal company but it surely supplies policing companies, beneath contract, to eight provinces, all three territories, about 150 municipalities and greater than 600 Indigenous communities.

The price of the RCMP’s companies — together with salaries and gear — is break up between the federal authorities and different ranges of presidency. How a lot a municipality is on the hook for depends upon its dimension.

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Municipalities with populations of lower than 15,000 pay 70 per cent of the prices, whereas the federal authorities pays 30 per cent. Municipalities with greater than 15,000 residents pay 90 per cent.

Vanderheyden stated that whereas negotiations on the collective settlement had been occurring behind closed doorways, municipalities had been suggested by the federal authorities to set cash apart to cowl the anticipated pay hike.

“Properly, the proportion was manner too low,” she stated, including the retroactive pay additionally got here as a shock to most mayors.

“We’re completely not in opposition to collective bargaining. That is not it. It is while you’re not on the desk and the direct impression involves you.”

Ottawa is requested to swallow retroactive prices 

The FCM has written a letter to the federal authorities asking it to soak up all retroactive prices related to the collective settlement. 

With out federal assist, Vanderheyden stated, “municipalities shall be pressured to make extremely tough choices as a result of they’re both going must make cuts to their important companies or go it alongside to the property tax, native residents. As a result of they can not go into arrears, they can not go to deficits.”

Peter Brown, mayor of Airdrie in Alberta, stated that whereas he firmly helps paying RCMP officers extra, he was shocked by the ultimate price ticket. He stated his metropolis, simply north of Calgary, has budgeted and held a refund over the previous few years however nonetheless has solely about half of what it must cowl the added policing prices.

“The message from me is, acknowledge that we have all been hit. We’re all struggling,” he stated, referring to the pandemic.

Brown stated the collective settlement’s impression on Airdrie’s funds is “in all probability in a $3.5 million to $4 million vary. That is the equal [of] a 5 per cent tax improve.”

Malcolm Brodie, mayor of Richmond, B.C., stated his municipality estimates the retroactive pay lump sum will value it one thing between $9 million and $11 million, whereas the annual pay improve itself will value $6 million to $7 million per 12 months.

“What which means for us is to cowl that the quantity going ahead on our funds, that is a few one-time 2.5 to 3.5 per cent tax improve,” he stated.

“We actually have stayed with the RCMP for a great purpose. We expect that they’ve finished a great job for our group. Having stated that, you already know, it is getting a complete lot costlier.”

A spokesperson for the federal Division of Public Security stated the division has saved in contact with areas with RCMP contracts frequently since 2018.

“Contracting jurisdictions had been conscious that the wage of RCMP officers had been frozen since 2016 and that the collective bargaining course of started in 2020. With the brand new collective settlement for RCMP common members and reservists, salaries are according to different police companies throughout Canada,” stated Tim Warmington.

“It’s truthful for normal members and reservists in addition to cheap for Canadian taxpayers.”