When Kamloops council votes on supplemental budget items next month, it’s potentially voting on whether the city will become a hub for police training.
One of the supplemental items is an RCMP Training Facility, which would cost $8.7 million, with a loan that would be paid back in 20-30 years.
“If they are doing training close to home, there is an opportunity to expand this and a little bit of revenue generating. My understanding is anybody in the professions where they have to carry a weapon requires certification and practice and training. So a lot of these people are travelling to the Lower Mainland, so there is an opportunity for us to make it available to other professions, not just the city RCMP,” the city’s finance director Kathy Humphrey says.
“While it has a cost-savings in our RCMP budget of not having to pay for travel, it also has a cost savings in terms of time and officers being in the local community, and not having to backfill or not having officers available when needed.”
The city also estimates the facility would bring in $675,000 in revenues each year.
Deciding on an RCMP training facility will not impact the 2021 budget, as the city tries to keep the tax increase close to zero per cent this year. The city would spend $755,000 in 2024 and $8 million in 2025, and the loan to pay back spending would start in 2024.
The facility would expect to be open in the fall of 2025.
“All of those sort of planning things, in the finance team and I think around the director’s table, are trying really hard to look out into future years. So that really the conversations aren’t scrambling, around what are we doing today in 2021. It’s about, okay, we already know what 2021 is, let’s try and look into 2022 and 2023 and do some long-term planning,” Humphrey says.
The public has until Feb. 3 to offer feedback online about any of the 23 proposed supplemental budget items. The page to learn more and provide feedback can be found here.