• an increase of over $6 million for eligible municipalities who receive the grant directly and;
  
  
• $2.6 million allocated for municipalities with populations under 5,000 and rural areas, as part of changes to police financing arrangements.

Over the first three years, the program provided $157 million to the 70 municipalities that have responsibility for policing in their communities. This year, the TFRS grant allocation for the District of West Vancouver is $857,982.

The purpose of the traffic fine revenue program is to fund police and public safety programs. This raises interesting questions as to what, exactly, constitutes “public safety”, and what accounting theory will be used to determine whether there has been an actual incremental increase in such expenditures, since often police and public safety spending is increasing regardless.

To check up , in 2006 the provincial government asked local governments to provide information on how they actually used the additional TFRS funds since the expansion of the program.

Reports were submitted and published on the Ministry of Community Services
website as a means of providing public accountability for the use of the revenues, and to demonstrate the range of initiatives undertaken by local governments to support public safety in our diverse communities.

The findings were:

1. An estimated 456 new police positions were added;
2. Municipalities also initiated a range of additional services to enhance policing and community safety.

Money flowed to the municipalities in July of this year.

Does more money flow back to West Vancouver if the police become hyper-vigilent giving out speeding tickets on Route 1? Not as one might think. The money goes into one big pot in Victoria and is then divvied up among all of the municipalities according to a formula based on population. West Vancouver might see a slight increase, but not a significant one.


Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing: the Details
 

As of 2007, the cumulative impact of the expansion of the Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing grant program has returned an additional $2.3 million to the District of West Vancouver to improve policing and public safety in the community.

What Does a Police Officer Cost?

Did you know that each police officer on the road in West Vancouver costs us more than $130,000?

Police Services Division of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General annually collects and reports on police strength, average cost per member, and total police expenditures for all police departments in the Province of British Columbia, including the West Vancouver Police Department. Here are the numbers up through 2005:

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