By Alex McCuaig

Budget police funding

Public safety could be at risk if DNA testing reduced, says chief

Nov 1, 2019 | 5:31 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – As the squeeze in provincial funding for municipalities begins to be felt, city police might be pinched between fighting crime and saving money. And the city’s police chief fears public safety might be the victim of being caught between the two potentially opposing forces when it comes to DNA testing.

In the provincial budget last week, it was announced the government will no longer foot the bill for DNA testing for municipal police services.

While MHPS Chief Andy McGrogan says he understands the forces behind such a cost cutting measure, “now that it’s a direct cost to us, you can imagine we’ll be a lot more careful about what (samples) we send off and eventually that affects public safety.”

McGrogan explained DNA samples sent off for smaller property offences can lead to breaks in far more serious crimes.

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“Either the cost of doing those analysis goes down or somehow we find the funding or we reduce the amount of samples we send in,” said McGrogan.

McGrogan estimated it costs approximately $1,800 for each DNA test and collectively that cost is about $100,000 annually.

That additional cost comes on top of a reduction to municipalities from fine revenue which the province will claim a higher percentage of now.

How the city chooses to deal with the shortfall will be up to councillors to decide, according to police commission chair Greg Keen, after that funding stream was detached from the police budget calculations.

“It could have an affect of about $500,000 on the city,” said Keen of the fine transfer reduction. “There will be some shortfall there for the city and we’ll have to see what the impact that has on the overall budget.”

Keen added, “you always have to weigh public safety and what is the cost for public safety.”

Both Keen and McGrogan cited the increased funding to the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) and the province keeping 2019 police grants in place as positives to come out of the provincial budget.