‘Bare bones’: Council approves $131.89M police budget on Day 1 of deliberations

On Day 1 of Regina’s 2026-27 budget debate, city council approved the largest police operating budget ever. Donovan Maess has more.

On the first day of 2026-27 budget deliberations, the Regina Police Service (RPS) had a $131.89 million gross operating budget approved by Regina City Council.

Of that, $116.1 million will be city tax funding which is $7.2 million more than what council approved last year. The remaining funding is sourced through a variety of additional grants, including those from the provincial and federal governments.

“I appreciate council has very tough decisions to make,” RPS Chief Lorilee Davies told reporters Monday. “I expected a lot of healthy debate, lots of questions around our budget. We can’t let our foot off the gas in terms of looking for efficiencies and ensuring we are being very diligent with the usage of taxpayer dollars.”

Earlier this year, council approved $108.9 million in city grants as part of the 2025 budget.

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The net police budget amounts to over 17 per cent of the city’s expenditures and 2.16 per cent of the forecasted 15.69 per cent mill rate hike, the most of any single city-funded service partner.

Chief Davies says RPS presented only one proposal to the Board of Police Commissioners (BOPC), which was approved and recommended to council.

“I’m confident in the fact the budget we brought here today is a lean budget,” she said. “It’s bare bones.”

A tight vote

The budget narrowly passed 6-5 with councillors George Tsiklis, Mark Burton, Sarah Turnbull, Shobna Radons, Jason Mancinelli and Mayor Chad Bachynski voting in favour.

Voting against the motion were councillors Dan Rashovich, David Froh, Victoria Flores, Shanon Zachidniak and Clark Bezo.

Due to provisions within the Cities Act, council can only accept or deny a municipal police budget. If it’s denied, it is sent back to the police board and a new recommendation is submitted.

The resubmission could be the exact same recommendation it first presented.

Those against the motion felt RPS could only solidify its budget by taking it back to the BOPC for further scrutiny.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Zachidniak, the councillor for Ward 8 said. “If the Board of Commissioners comes back with a leaner budget, then everyone wins once again because the Board of Commissioners and the police found some additional efficiencies.”

Other city service partners, such as the Regina Exhibition Association, took additional looks at their budget requests to find further savings.

Ward 6 Coun. Flores hoped RPS could do the same.

“We’re in a tough position [with] this budget,” she told her fellow council members. “Police are our [highest] funded [organization] in the city. It’s the one priority we have not scaled back.”

Mayor Bachynski and Ward 2 Coun. Tsiklis serve on the BOPC.

“We examined it pretty tight. We were told it was really tight,” Tsiklis said. “[I’m] not sure the reasons why you want to send it back, but if you [did], and if that’s what happens, no problem. We [would] meet and bring it back to you.”

Bachynski says the increase in funding to police is a signal of shortcomings to social programs which officers on the street have been tasked to deal with.

“We need housing, we need supports, we need things to help navigate some of the workload that has unfairly been put on police that is not really a good fit,” he said. “To navigate away from that so we have a better balance, approach and a response to the needs of our community.”

Resident concerns

Six residents appeared in front of councillors to speak against the increase in funding to Regina Police.

“The minus five austerity budget that was asked to come forward, why wasn’t the Regina Police Service asked to provide a minus five budget,” asked Shawn Koch. “The RPS budget has nearly doubled since 2015. In that time, houselessness has quadrupled.”

“My property taxes and utility charges increased by more than $1,200 [last year], approximately triple any annual increase I’ve experienced in 50 years as a result of taxpayer,” said Robert Humphires. “To dispel any doubt, [I] recommend the police budget be frozen.”

“I know the world has changed. I know the RPS faces more challenges today than ten years ago,” Marian Donnelly added. “I’m not saying don’t increase their budget. I’m asking if they can manage with a $5 million increase to operating and maybe a $5 million increase the capital instead of the requested $7 [million].”

Humphries says he has heard from all corners of the political spectrum concerns about the stark increases for RPS’ funding.

“It’s also important that we put the brakes on this and we put them on now,” he said. “I’ve struggled with the increases in the police budget for quite some time.”

Regina councillors have not rejected an RPS budget since 2013. That year, council approved a budget of $69.2 million, an increase of $3.5 million or 5.3 per cent, over the 2012 budget.

“I’m not here to outsmart anybody. I’m here to check and to meter and try to match the need,” Ward 9 Coun. Mancinelli said. ”I wish I could send it back to try to save a little bit more to see if we can squeeze a little bit more.”

“This budget is set by need, not by political popularity of the percentage and I guess that’s part of the responsibility of my position as well,” he added.

Added personnel

As part of its request the service requested 11 new positions to be hired in 2026 and 10 positions in 2027.

According to RPS, it has fielded 96,000 9-1-1 calls between January and November 2025.

“Out of those calls for service, we’ve seen about 1,700 mental health related calls,“ Regina Police Association member Colin Glass said. ”There is going to be a gap created with the the complement of civilian members, in order to assist our sworn members to do the work that they do every day.”

The provincial government is funding 32 new officers and two Alternative Response Officers, therefore City funding is not required for these positions. Staffing expenditures will support 711 permanent and 18 casual employees in 2026 and 734 permanent and 21 casual employees in 2027.

Staffing comprises 86 per cent of the gross operating budget.

`There isn’t anybody else who’s going at 3 a.m.“ Davies said. ”You need to fund a police service to be able to staff to meet those demands and calls for service."

With the approval, RPS will have a capital budget of $7.7 million, of which SGI funds $128,000.

Because this year’s deliberations are setting the city’s budget for the next two years, RPS’ net operating budget of $123.58 million and a capital budget of $8.7 million was also approved ‘in principle’ for 2027 Monday.

Council’s budget deliberations continue Tuesday.