Nanaimo RCMP detachment is hiring more manpower with money approved by city council.
The funding, $719,000 annually, announced Monday, was voted for in an in-camera council meeting June 19.
The money will be used to hire three more general duty officers and two civilian administrative staff.
Nanaimo mayor Bill McKay said police are coming under greater pressure as Nanaimo is growing and it was time to draw from RCMP reserve funds to hire more staff and providing more funding will save money in the long run.
“I could see that the RCMP were starting to struggle,” McKay said. “They’ve got many more files on the go right now. There’s some concern about whether they were getting the best value out of their resources. In other words, if you find yourself in a situation where you really need more officers, but don’t fund, you end up paying more overtime. That just doesn’t make sense.”
Nanaimo RCMP Supt. Cameron Miller said the three new officers will be brought in to do general duty policing and oversee operations. They might be seasoned members or fresh recruits, depending on who the RCMP’s staffing division can send.
One of the benefits of getting new recruits, Miller said, is they’re generally posted to Nanaimo for a minimum of five years, whereas a member with 10 years’ service might transfer to another detachment for a promotion or other reasons, sometimes within a year or two of arriving.
“We do know with a recruit, once they get trained and they’re off field training that they’ll be here for another five years, so we do get a long return from a new recruit,” Miller said.
The two civilian administration staff being hired will free up to more RCMP officers who are currently doing those duties, such as reporting transcriptions, keeping records and preparing disclosures for court cases.
“By having civilians doing that, that will actually free up two more police officers that can hit the road and, basically, put boots back on the ground, so with the three police officers that the city’s just authorized and the other two that’ll be replaced by civilians, it’s actually increasing five more people that we can put on the road in terms of armed, sworn officers,” Cameron said.
Depending on how quickly new officers become available, it could be several months before the three new officer positions will be filled.
The additional three officers will bring Nanaimo RCMP’s personnel complement to 143 municipal members. Counting the provincial and federal level RCMP officers in Nanaimo, the total number of officers at Nanaimo detachment is 153.
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