BANFF – Banff’s RCMP detachment continues to be stretched without a full complement of police, making it difficult to meet the fine revenue projections set by the Town of Banff for road and traffic safety.
The Town of Banff’s operating budget for police services projects approximately $300,000 in fine revenue in both 2022 and 2023 and $342,000 by 2024. The municipality’s amended 2021 budget had forecast $300,000 in fine revenue; however, it was about $53,000 by the end of the third quarter.
One of Banff council’s ongoing priorities for the local police force is traffic safety enforcement; however, a decline in fine revenues has been attributed to lower visitation during the COVID-19 pandemic and not having the detachment at full capacity.
Banff RCMP say traffic services and road safety is a priority for the detachment, but competing priorities and having several officers absent last year due to parental leaves or injuries means proactive traffic safety is done whenever possible.
“I can’t see a time when it’s not going to be one of our operational priorities. Every time we have a conversation with the community, road safety comes up,” said Staff Sergeant Mike Buxton-Carr, Banff RCMP’s detachment commander.
“However, it’s sort of on an as-and-when basis as we don’t have a dedicated traffic enforcement unit. Obviously, if there's crime against a person, that’s a priority, and those take considerable time and follow up.”
While the Town of Banff has communicated the municipality’s priority to see a re-focus on traffic safety programs in the community to the RCMP, municipal officials acknowledged there have been a number of factors leading to the revenue decline over the years.
At one time, the revenue was in the range of $500,000-plus.
Silvio Adamo, the Town of Banff’s director of protective services, said one of the biggest reasons was the reallocation of provincial sheriffs from being stationed at the Banff detachment to Cochrane, which saw a shift in focus to more highway patrols.
“We used to see that unit come into town a bit more often to do operations on traffic safety,” he said.
The Town of Banff’s policing services is provided by 14 RCMP members under a municipal police service contract with the Town of Banff.
Of the 14 members, there are nine frontline uniform constables, two plain-clothed officers for general investigations, one detachment commander, one operations non-commissioned officer and one corporal general duty supervisor.
There are also four positions funded by the province of Alberta, including three front-line investigators and one front-line supervisor.
“We use them in our region. We send them where the need is so they do some work in the municipality as well,” said Staff Sgt. Buxton-Carr.
There are no dedicated traffic resources, however.
“There’s nobody whose prime mandate is to conduct proactive enforcement,” said Staff Sgt Buxton-Carr.
“But everybody, when there’s not an incoming call for service on the other priorities we have, has that as part of their duties.”
In addition, there have been several vacant positions at any given time this year.
“It’s just been one of those years where there have been absences for good and unfortunate reasons – the good being parental leaves and the unfortunate being injuries,” said Staff Sgt Buxton-Carr.
“We’ve had considerable absences on our front-line working staff, probably three to five of our 12 front-line investigator positions vacant for any time, so that’s been a challenge.”
Another reason attributed to the difference in fine revenue for the Town of Banff over the past few years is the police force’s move to an electronic ticketing system in 2018.
Prior to 2018, it seems that some of the revenues that were coming to the Town of Banff should have been allocated to the province of Alberta.
“Prior to the electronic ticketing, the revenue for Banff was far, far higher, and now unattainable,” said Staff Sgt. Buxton-Carr.
“Since the move to electronic ticketing, we have seen what I would suggest are far more realistic levels.”
The province’s integrated traffic unit is made up of five RCMP officers funded by the province of Alberta.
For the most part, the unit’s mandate is essentially highway patrol of highways between Kananaskis Country and Lake Louise.
“They do come into each municipality for a small percentage of their work,” said Staff Sgt. Buxton-Carr.
“Currently, they’re doing about nine per cent of their work in the Town of Banff, I believe, which is a slight increase from previous years when I looked at stats and saw they were doing seven or eight percent.”
Since 2016, the Banff RCMP detachment has written between 950 and 1,200 traffic-related tickets between the Town of Banff and Improvement District No. 9.
“We understand we are responding to a need. We are doing proactive enforcement to hold people accountable for their actions and to dissuade future violations,” said Staff Sgt. Buxton-Carr.
Mayor Corrie DiManno was pleased to hear the reasons why the revenues were lower.
“Thank you for that explanation,” she said.
A 2021 priority of council was for administration to bring options to council for a dedicated RCMP traffic-focused additional constable.
That has been postponed until the Town of Banff has time to review how the municipal enforcement department’s two dedicated traffic officers have played out over the course of a full year.
