The City of Duncan’s budget for 2025 will likely see an 11.1 per cent increase for taxpayers.
City council gave the first three readings to the budget at its meeting on April 14, and council is required to adopt the final budget by May 15.
Approximately 11 per cent of the tax increase in 2025 is due to escalating policing costs and the addition of one more officer to Duncan’s member force.
The resulting policing costs have increased to $736,000 from 2024, which includes $225,000 that was used from reserves in 2023, bringing the total to almost $3 million this year.
Before 2021, the city’s population was below 5,000 residents and the province was fully financially responsible for providing policing and law enforcement to the municipality, as it is for all municipalities with populations below 5,000 in B.C.
But Duncan’s population surpassed the 5,000 mark in the 2021 census and the city had to start paying 70 per cent of its policing costs for the first time, as required by the provincial Policing Act.
Based on the number of calls for service in the area, the province required the city to fund eight officers in 2022, increasing by one officer each year until reaching 12 officers in 2026.
The city must also contribute proportionally to the operating costs of the new North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP detachment building, administration, and equipment.
Despite negotiations and appeals, the municipality has also been saddled with paying almost $290,000 for 911 police dispatch costs for the first time in 2025.
The city decided to pay the 911 dispatch costs out of its policing reserve fund for this year, but it’s anticipated that the additional costs could add a five per cent tax increase to next year’s budget all on its own.
E-Comm 911 is a multi-municipality agency that provides emergency communications operations for British Columbia, whose costs are currently being paid by the federal and provincial governments.
But Duncan, North Cowichan and Ladysmith, as well as seven other communities on south Vancouver Island, had been told by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General that they will be responsible for taking over 100 per cent of the costs of the E-comm 911 service as of April 1, 2025.
Coun. Tom Duncan asked CAO Peter de Verteuil if there are any more negotiations or appeals planned to try to lessen the city’s financial responsibility for the service.
“We have 10 municipalities that are being singled out to pay these costs, while the costs are paid on behalf of other municipalities,” he said. “I just don’t see the fairness on this.”
De Verteuil said the city and the other nine impacted municipalities have exhausted all the appeals, and then went back and tried to have it dealt with again through various government ministers but with no success.
“We thought there was going to be good news in the premier’s message at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting (in September), but that didn’t come to roost,” he said.
“They are doing a review of 911 provincially and how it's funded, but that’s not likely to make any large-scale improvements in these costs for us… I wouldn’t hold our breaths that it will end up in a reduction of our costs, and it will more likely result in the other communities having to pay as well.”
