It's going to feel like Christmas for special events such as the Centre of Gravity. The annual Kelowna summer festival, which focuses on beach volleyball and water based activities, can expect a rebate cheque in the amount of almost $16,000 from the city. The money amounts to a significant reduction in the formula used to calculate policing costs for the event. Under current city bylaws, organizers of special events, such as Centre of Gravity, must cover all policing costs. Those cost are estimated prior to the event based on double time for the RCMP member and using a 40% surcharge on the hourly rate which cover the indirect and operation support charges. For 2010, the costs were calculated as $121.15 per member and $47.85 per auxiliary. In a report City Council will review Monday, Finance Director Keith Grayston says under the current RCMP contract, the actual direct and indirect costs is 65% above the salary cost, which includes items such as vehicles, travel and training equipment maintenance and pension costs. "Many of these costs are not impacted by an increase in overtime expenditures, and so to keep the cost of special events more reasonable, a new rate has been calculated utilizing a 20% surcharge on the double time rate for a senior corporal position," says Grayston in his report. "That rate is $96.70 per hour. The RCMP Auxiliary rate has also been reduced to $28 per hour."
Grayston says revised invoices have been prepared for three events concerning policing costs. For future events, Grayston says these rates will be used with adjustments to the member's salary on an annual basis. He says, in the future, the RCMP would also like to provide cost estimates based solely on using RCMP members. Grayston says the actual invoice would then be reduced if auxiliary members were also used. "This is because there may not be auxiliaries available for all events and estimating them on the original agreement may create problems if they are not able to be used."
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Item 6.8 - Special Events Policing Charges.pdf (855kb) (2010-09-30) Outdoor Events Bylaw No. 8358.pdf (35kb) (2006-07-28)
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