ST. PAUL - “What’s the outcome if we just say no?” That was the question posed by Town of St. Paul Coun. Brad Eamon after ongoing discussions have reemerged countless times regarding retroactive pay that municipalities across the country are being asked to pay for RCMP services.
While Town of St. Paul council as a whole does not deny that RCMP officers are worthy of the pay increase, the issue is that municipalities were not at the table during the five years of negotiations that took place with the federal government, according to Mayor Maureen Miller.
She referred to the fact that the St. Paul detachment is now also part of a pilot project where officers will be wearing body cameras, but once the pilot project is over, there will be a cost to continue the initiative.
"All of this is being downloaded... municipalities of our size can no longer sustain these costs," said Miller, during the April 11 regular council meeting.
But, it was Coun. Eamon who ultimately took a stand against paying the invoice for $327,835, addressed to the Town of St. Paul.
CAO Steven Jeffery said he didn't have an answer as to what the repercussions would be, but the municipality could ask those questions. Jeffery noted that if there was direction from council to not pay the invoice, then it would not be paid.
"This is a ridiculous conversation to be having,” said Eamon. The invoice, which was also presented to council for information on Tuesday night, specifically says it must be paid within 45 days. The retroactive payment stretches from April 1, 2017, to March 31, 2021.
“It just doesn’t make sense and we can’t be the only community in the province," said Eamon, clearly frustrated. He added, if municipalities collectively say no, "maybe we will be heard."
While he made a comment that perhaps the municipality should take five years to pay the bill since it took five years to negotiate it, Eamon affirmed that he was "not floating out ideas. I'm just saying no right now."
As the motion was made by Eamon to defer payment of the invoice, the mayor noted in response, "I think that’s the best motion made this year.” The motion was carried unanimously by council members in attendance, which included, Eamon, Miller, Coun. Norm Noel, Coun. Gary Ward, and Coun. Ron Boisvert.
Councillors Sid Sood and Nathan Taylor were not in attendance at the meeting.
The topic arose a few times throughout the Tuesday night meeting as council and administration also discussed the 2023 draft operating budget. A three per cent tax increase is being proposed as the Town works toward balancing its budget - that three per cent increase essentially covers the retroactive pay that is due.
“We’ve seen assessment increase, which is very good news," said Jeffery, but quickly added a tax increase is still needed to balance the budget.
"I'm worried about increasing taxes three per cent to pay for a retroactive pay raise, essentially," said the CAO.
City of Cold Lake will pay over $400,000
The retroactive pay issue was also brought up during the City of Cold Lake's April 11 meeting, but the tone of the discussion was very different.
CAO Kevin Nagoya spoke to the issue. "The City of Cold Lake annually had been keeping additional funding into restricted surplus, knowing that this would be an eventuality," he told council.
There are a lot of different perspectives as to if the municipalities should be making this retroactive pay, said Nagoya. Almost immediately after the federal budget was announced, the City of Cold Lake got the invoice confirming the retroactive pay owed by the City is $441,900.
"I did have a discussion with several other mid-sized cities," said Nagoya, adding there is an option to make payments but there is not a lot of time to react and understand what the terms and conditions might be. Ultimately, "We will take our guidance from city council," said the CAO.
"The risk of paying is nil, because you're paying off the bill." He added that he would not advise council to not pay a bill.
"The formula is very complicated," said Nagoya, when asked about how the numbers were tallied. "They are taking some averages in terms of costs and overtime."
During discussions, the CAO also noted that when the City of Cold Lake's population increased to over 15,000 people, its share of RCMP costs increased from 70 per cent to 90 per cent funding model, ultimately increasing the costs for Cold Lake taxpayers.
Coun. Vicki Lefebvre made a motion to pay the amount owed. The motion was carried.
FCM is disappointed
The day after the federal government's budget was announced, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) released a statement on March 29, speaking to how it was disappointed that the federal government "passed unbudgeted and unaccounted for RCMP costs on to municipalities."
"Despite months of municipal advocacy led by the FCM, provincial-territorial associations, and local leaders across Canada, the federal government has indicated in the 2023 Budget that it will not be meeting the request to absorb the retroactive costs associated with the latest RCMP collective bargaining agreement," reads the statement from FCM.
“Municipalities have been crystal clear,” said FCM president Taneen Rudyk. “Local governments were not at the table for these negotiations. And while cost estimates were provided to some municipalities, these turned out to be far below the final agreement’s increase over six years, with retroactive pay going back to 2017.”
FCM offered a few other examples of what municipalities are being asked to pay, which included the Town of Hinton with a bill of $750,000.
The County of St. Paul did not get a bill for retroactive pay since the municipality has only been paying for policing for a few years.
"The County has only been paying for RCMP policing for the last three years based on a formula determined by the Province," according to County of St. Paul CAO Sheila Kitz. "I can confirm that the County received the invoice for policing for 2022-23 and it was what was expected and even a little less than what was budgeted," she added.
