Surrey Police Service's proposed $142M budget for 2024 in line with city allocation, board says

Mike Serr, administrator of the Surrey Police Board, says the Surrey Police Service’s proposed budget for 2024 falls within the city’s financial forecast.

The board governing the Surrey Police Service (SPS) says the force’s proposed budget of $142 million for 2024 aligns with the city’s financial forecast and would lead to 408 officers being deployed by the end of the year.

Mike Serr, who was appointed administrator of the Surrey Police Board in November 2023, made the numbers public at a news conference on Thursday morning.

Serr was made sole administrator in order to oversee the transition of policing services in Surrey from the RCMP to the SPS, a move contested by Mayor Brenda Locke, who was board chair.

Serr said the SPS budget proposes to spend $142 million in 2024 to have 526 officers, including new recruits, and 23 civilian staff hired by the end of the year — making up about 67 per cent of policing services in the city, with RCMP comprising the rest.

By the end of the year, Serr said, the SPS would have 408 officers deployed and working on the front lines out of a total of 785 officers in Surrey.

“This budget is dependent on the winding down of the Surrey RCMP to complement the growth of SPS,” said Serr.

The proposed budget comes as Locke continues to defy the police transition, which the province ordered under law last November.

Locke, along with Peter German, a lawyer and former RCMP deputy commissioner who is advising the city on the transition, have said the SPS has been over budget.

Serr said the SPS’s proposed budget was reviewed by auditor Deloitte and would use $142 million of the city’s $337 million available funds for policing in the city and the transition, according to city financial plans and reports.

‘Give clarity … give comfort’

Serr said he was making the SPS’s proposed budget public, two months after they were presented to city staff, in order to be transparent over the police transition in Surrey, which has been fraught with enmity and contradicting financial numbers.

“I believe this budget, along with its underlying assumptions, will give city council confidence with the number associated with moving this transition forward,” he said.

“It is my hope that this transparent budget process will give clarity, that it will give comfort to the residents and the businesses of Surrey.”

The City of Surrey has not yet released its approved financial plan for 2024, which would include policing allocations. It has until March 15 to do so.

CBC News has asked the mayor’s office for comment on the proposed SPS budget.