ESTEVAN - The Estevan Police Service is nearing a decision on how it will allocate the funding it received from the provincial government last September.
Estevan Police Chief Jamie Blunden said the police department is looking at adding a position to the drug and intelligence unit to join the officer the EPS has in there now; Blunden said he is 99.9 per cent confident the move will proceed.
The EPS also wants to add a second officer for the police and crisis team (PACT), as the force has had just one member in there since PACT came to Estevan nearly three years ago. Two health workers are also part of the unit.
"That's going to be looking after the mental health, addictions and social issues that we have within the city of Estevan," said Blunden.
The EPS also wants to have a greater presence in the schools, but it can't afford to have one officer who works exclusively in the buildings, as Blunden said the EPS also needs support for the front lines.
"We're going to do a hybrid where we designate a member and … make them the school resource officer," said Blunden.
The officer can help out on front lines while other officers have vacation days, such as during the summer months when school is out, or if the EPS is short on the street, but the school resource officer's main focus would be on schools. While the officer would concentrate on the Estevan Comprehensive School, the member could branch out and pay some attention to the other schools.
"We really want to get in touch with the youth," said Blunden. "We want to make and establish those connections with the kids, and I think we've lost that a little bit with respect to kids seeing us as individuals as opposed to just police officers in uniform. So, I think it's important for us to get in touch with the youth."
The EPS also has some vacancies to be addressed, with a retirement that just happened and another officer moving to the RCMP.
Blunden believes these three new positions fit nicely with the Community Safety and Wellbeing Committee that is now in place. PACT is an obvious connection to the committee's work, but Blunden believes the drug officer will help with issues in the community.
There were some other positions that the EPS looked at with this funding, but it thought these were the areas that needed the most attention.
The provincial government announced $357,000 last September for the EPS to hire three more officers, in addition to annual provincial funding that the EPS receives for multiple officers.
