Rural police in Sask. to receive provincial funding

Small town and rural police services in Saskatchewan will now receive provincial funding through a new grant. Stacey Hein reports.

Small-town and rural police services in Saskatchewan will now receive provincial funding through a new grant.

The Small Town and Rural Police (STAR) grant will provide five police forces with $10,000 for every sworn officer.

The $190,000 program was announced in the provincial budget last month.

Historically, small town and rural police forces have operated without provincial funding and relied instead on funding from the municipality or rural municipality they serve.

“We just recognize that small town and rural police services need some assistance as policing becomes more and more complex,” Community Safety Minister Michael Weger said at a news conference Wednesday.

Weger said the funding model is based on service size, with larger police services receiving more support because of higher operating costs.

“It’s an objective way of setting a dollar value,” he said.

He said the funding comes “without strings attached” and can be used at the discretion of each service.

The Corman Park Police Service will receive the most funding at $110,000 for its 11 officers.

Chief Robert Duttchen said officers now carry more equipment to handle increasingly complex cases, and the funding will help update that equipment and support training.

“In a smaller agency, you want to have all of the capacity of the large agencies, but how do you keep an 11 person police force trained up to the exacting standard for the nonstandard things that police are now being expected to do,” Duttchen said.

He said the $110,000 is a small portion of its roughly $2.5-million budget but will “go a long way,” adding the service is behind on its equipment budget and plans to hire three new officers before the end of the year.

The Dalmeny, Luseland, Vanscoy and Wilton police services will also receive funding from the STAR grant.

Police services in larger centres have received funding through the Municipal Police Grant since 2007. The province said the STAR grant means all police services in Saskatchewan now receive provincial funding.