Lethbridge Police Service. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

LPS budget cut will mean fewer officers on the streets: Chief

Dec 15, 2020 | 11:39 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – In the months ahead, the Chief of Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) is expecting there to be job reductions.

This follows the decision Monday by Lethbridge City Council, who voted to decrease funding to LPS by $1-million as part of the new operating budget.

READ MORE: Lethbridge city council approves operating budget, $1M LPS cut goes through

Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh says, following months of discussions with council, he knew this was coming but was nonetheless disappointed.

“Any reduction in police budget means reducing our number of our police officers out there. We can’t absorb a million-dollar budget cut by just getting rid of the civilian [staff].”

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Normally, administrative personnel would be among the first to go when faced with a budget cut, but Mehdizadeh told LNN they were already running thin in many of those departments. He said they already needed to hire more people behind-the-scenes.

“A million dollars really translates into six-to-seven police officers, so that’s basically what we’re going to be working with is going from the number of 172 to about 165 to 166, so it’s going to reduce our footprint from the gun-carrying police officer perspective.”

The service will try to minimize the impact on front-line officers as much as it can, but there are only so many ways they can do that.

One potential route is through the other programs LPS offers such as The Watch, Community Peace Officers, and PACT. It is not, however, one that Mehdizadeh would approach with any enthusiasm.

“We do need those programs and those programs too. When they are not present and we take more from that side, it puts the pressure on our officers too.”

“I’m not a big fan of telling our police officers to do more with less. Sometimes it happens, but that causes more issues for us in the future because that would basically translate into more stress for our police officers, more sick leave, and more people not working which is really not a good thing for this organization.”

LPS currently has a budget surplus of approximately $275,000. At least some of that was planned to be used for a pilot project into equipping officers with body cams.

READ MORE: Lethbridge Police hope to start body cam pilot project in 2020

Mehdizadeh says this will likely have to be put on hold for the time being.

The police commission is expected to present to city council by the end of February about how they plan to achieve these savings.

Stats Canada recently reported that Lethbridge had the highest Crime Severity Index in the country for 2019.

READ MORE: Lethbridge has Canada’s highest Crime Severity Index