Vernon addressing public safety concerns by bringing in more RCMP members, support staff

Dec 3, 2025 | 11:52 AM

The local police force is going to get a boost over the next few years.

During the Budget 2026 special meeting Monday, Dec. 1, Vernon City Council heard a report from the RCMP requesting funding to bring in more officers and members.

Findings from the public engagement and survey opportunities offered in conjunction with the development of the city’s financial plan showed that nearly 76 per cent of respondents were in support of improving public safety through investments in protective services, including the RCMP.

Members of the Vernon North Okanagan RCMP appeared before council at the special meeting and asked that funding be provided to for seven new officers, as well as a 0.5 full time equivalent exhibit custodian.

The RCMP put forward the request for new members as it wanted to increase the force to meet the needs of a growing population, support operations, and improve investigative services.

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It was requested that two of the new hires join the ranks as a general duty constable and staff sergeant.

“This [frontline constable] position would allow us to balance out the resources across all four frontline watches, as we currently have one watch that is one constable position lower than the other three teams. So this would just balance this out and allow us to have equal resources available across all four crime watches,” Insp. Neil Kennedy explained at Monday’s meeting.

“The staff sergeant’s position would be the Senior Operations Supervisor, that would bring greater consistency across all four frontline watches and ensure continuity on all serious matters and day-to-day operations within the city. This position would directly contribute to both client and investigational service standards, and support my role as the Operations Officer for the region and directly for reporting for the city operations.”

The other five positions would go to fill roles in the investigative services teams, with one constable joining the Special Victims Unit, one sergeant and one constable joining the Serious Crime Unit, and two constables joining the Drug Unit.

“There are requirements that are placed on B.C. police agencies, and some of these requirements were introduced in January of 2019 and they mandated the way that police officers in B.C. have to investigate major crimes. One result of these requirements is that now more police officers are required to investigate these major crimes than ever before,” Staff Sergeant Julie Rockwell, officer in charge of the plainclothes units, told council.

“Our Serious Crime Unit only investigates serious crimes (such as murders, kidnappings, shootings and home invasions), while our Special Victims Unit and our Drug Unit investigate major crimes but they also investigate other file types as well. So the requirements that were introduced in January of 2019 really impact all three of those units that we are requesting more positions for, and in each of those three units we have not had an increase in any of those three positions since these new requirements that now require more police officers to conduct investigations was instituted.

“What that has meant for the past almost seven years now for these three units is that these units have really been struggling to try and meet the mandated requirements to be able to solve these crimes.”

Rockwell added the missing personnel has also put additional strain on the current force, and that bringing in the new members would ensure that the units are properly supported and can meet the standards in investigating crimes and prosecuting criminals.

The RCMP also asked to bring in a new exhibit custodian, who would be responsible for managing property seized by the RCMP. The local detachment already had one full time exhibit custodian, and a full time temporary position was established in 2024 on a one year pilot that has since come to an end. The local police force has since determined it only requires 1.5 full time staff to manage these items, and asked council to provide funding for the part time employee.

Upon reviewing the requests during the budget meeting, Vernon City Council voted unanimously in favour of hiring two new RCMP officers immediately, and investigating hiring more members moving forward.

The hiring of the new officers and support staff would be done using the RCMP contingency, and would not have any impact on taxpayers. The cost to hire the exhibit custodian was set at $47,954 and the cost for hiring the new officers was $513,222.

Speaking to Vernon Matters following the meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming said hiring RCMP officers and support staff takes time, and that’s why they were moving ahead with two new members for the new year.

“The situation with the RCMP is that if you want RCMP anytime during 2026, you have to ask now,” Cumming explained.

“[The local detachment] asked for seven, and the ask for seven was reasonable, and we’re starting with two and we’ll look at any money that we have leftover from 2025 and we may be able to fund a third one. But this is really important that we move on this, within the next two or three years we need to have that full seven accounted for.”

The mayor reaffirmed that the new RCMP positions, be it two or three in the coming year, would be funded through the reserve that gets topped up at the end of each year and not through new taxes.

Vernon covers 90 per cent of the RCMP costs, and the federal government covers the remainer. The financial plan showed the city would be paying $17,452,028 for the local police force in 2026, up 5.05 per cent from the previous year’s budget.

The decision to fund more RCMP staff positions was made as council also endorsed a tax rate of 9.73 per cent for 2026.

by Liam Verster

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