As of October, Codiac RCMP is $1.7 million under budget, although that could change in the blink of an eye.
The numbers were presented at the Codiac Regional Policing Authority meeting, which showed $1.3 million of that total is from staff vacancies.
Superintendent Tom Critchlow explains the variety of issues their human resources department is facing.
“You have a number of people who could be out on maternity leave, paternity leave, training, people that get hurt or are off sick,” says Critchlow. “And trying to manage those issues is difficult.”
He adds they are “tackling the HR issue with a plan, with our Human Resource folks at Headquarters, and getting people in, we have a plan and there are some people coming in to fill that, so obviously those salary dollars will be accounted for.”
Critchlow was asked if the vacancies were leaving gaps in their frontline service.
The short answer is no, he responded, before going on to add “although there’s vacancies there, what it means is there are other positions we can’t fill, not on the front line, we’d like to bolster, obviously to get those so we can release people to get to specialized sections for example.”
Critchlow also warned a major investigation like a murder could very quickly erase that surplus before the year is out.
The CRPA meeting financials only extended to the end of October, and do not yet include November or December numbers.