Oxford Burdened by RCMP Cost

Oxford Mayor Greg Henley was surprised at news that Cumberland County is now in negotiations with the RCMP for policing services. 

As Six Rivers News reported on Wednesday, the Municipality of Cumberland received only three proposals to the tender for policing services, quickly rejecting two and deciding to stick with the Mounties… though the terms of that agreement are still far from settled.

Policing services have been under review for years by both the County and Town of Oxford, with the last round of negotiations resulting in a 2.8-person reduction in constable positions for the town, and a small degree of savings.

Mayor Henley says the news that the county will stick with the RCMP in some capacity isn’t likely to affect Oxford too much. He notes that in many respects the repercussions of the county policing contract pretty much dictate what happens in the town. 

Oxford continues, says the Mayor, to view the bill for those services as being far too high for a town that encompasses about six square kilometres and less than 15-hundred residents. 

The town’s budget, passed last week, includes a $560-thousand dollar payment to the RCMP for Oxford’s share of the services. Add in the Federal and Provincial portion of the bill, and the actual cost of policing in the town approaches $900-thousand dollars, an astonishing figure for a small rural community with very little crime.

Henley stresses that the Town has a good relationship with the local RCMP officers who provide policing services, but feels the programme under which they work is not geared toward the realities of a small town.

He says, “There has to be a better way to do this.”

Henley notes that if the financial burden of policing in Oxford could be reduced from the current 19% of the budget to something approaching 10%, that could free up a quarter-of-a-million dollars, which would benefit Oxford’s many pending infrastructure improvements.

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