Local police getting more municipal support staff

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“Exhibit Custodian and Court Liaison Officer, even though they’re in the same band with respect to pay, their skill sets are quite different. And these are two existing CUPE positions, and if we provide assistance to them it’s in those very specific areas and we need someone qualified for the work,” Gaucher told council.

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Gaucher added Vernon would be the biggest beneficiary of having these positions filled.

“Predominately, the City of Vernon is where the bulk of the work is done,” Gaucher explained.

“Our Court Liaison Officers and Exhibit Custodians do nothing for the rural component, so Armstrong, Spallumcheen and Enderby. There will be doing some smaller work for Lumby, and of course the District of Coldstream, but again the number’s quite small.”

Gaucher stated the positions would likely not be filled until the fall, and would work for the local police force on a one-year term. Following that period, Vernon City Council may be asked to fully fund the positions on a permanent basis.

Council voted unanimously in favour of the request Monday.

Following Monday’s meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming stated these are key roles to fill.

“Those are positions in what they call municipal employees, they support the RCMP, and the amount of paperwork required now for taking cases to court continues to increase, and what we need to do as a municipality is support that role,” Cumming stated.

“Municipal employees cost significantly less than RCMP members, so we want municipal employees to do that paperwork, and minimize that paperwork being done by full RCMP members.”

— Original Story: RCMP seeking city funding for more staff —

Vernon city council is being asked to provide more than $200,000 to beef-up RCMP staffing on a temporary basis.

City administration is seeking $220,015 to hire two parttime (0.5 FTE) employees — a court liaison officer and exhibit custodian — as well as a full-time crime analyst for a 12-month period.

One-time funding was approved by council last year for similar positions to deal with a backlog in the departments.

Geoff Gaucher, General Manager, Municipal Support Services RCMP, suggests the funding could come from the RCMP Contingency Reserve which has a balance of $1.5 million.

“After fully assessing the effectiveness of these three positions, there may be a need for these positions to come back to Council as a Service Level Adjustment in the 2026 budget process,” Gaucher wrote in a report to council.

The two part-time positions have annual salaries of $44,624 while the full-time crime analyst pays $130,767.

Gaucher said the crime analyst collects, assembles, analyses and interprets a wide variety of investigative and intelligence data to support ongoing investigations, community policing and crime prevention strategies and operational plans.

The court liaison officer supports the Vernon/North Okanagan Municipal RCMP Detachment as a bridge between federal and provincial Crown as well as defense counsel, providing disclosure.

The exhibit custodian is responsible for the safe keeping and storage of all seized property as well as to preserve continuity of evidence in order to support court prosecutions.

City council will deal with the request at its meeting Monday, June 10.