The City of Weyburn is asking for the public to review its preliminary 2023 Budget as presented during the October 24th meeting of Weyburn City Council. Read more HERE.

Of the overall operating and capital budget for 2023, which is determined to be $31,269,138, policing accounts for about 20 percent of that.

Police Chief Jamie Blunden said the Weyburn Police Service will see an increase to 4,615,190 up from last year by about half a million dollars. This is due to a cross-section of increases in various areas, including wages and benefits, maintenance, materials and supplies, and other costs.

"So for our wages and benefits, the budget increase that we're asking for makes up about 44 percent of that," he explained. "Our wages themselves, through our collective bargaining agreement, there's a certain percentage that the members are getting each year, about one and a half to two percent, that makes 22 percent of the wages, but there's 20 percent coming from benefits. We haven't budgeted properly for benefits in the past, so we're trying to get and close that gap to get up to where we need to be. So that's the increase in benefits." 

"Overall, the budget increases the 49 percent of it is capital items, so we're looking at a little bit about the 911 system, the tazers, now we're looking at a new vehicle as well that we have to upgrade to be able to put on the road, because there's one or two that we have to take off the road."

Operational items only make up nine percent of that increase.

"Those operational items, our equipment, training, and everything else that goes along with that, and we all know that with the cost of living in the inflation that's come in place, just replacing the same pair of pants or the same shirt is a little bit more money this year-round than it was last year, so those are the asks that we have."

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