Surrey city hall and the police board are contemplating a $284.5-million proposed budget this year for the Surrey Police Service to support the ongoing transition to the Surrey Police Service from the Surrey RCMP, featuring a $45-million increase in funding over 2025 and $100 million more in budget costs since 2021.
The city’s finance committee will meet on March 9.
Mayor Brenda Locke said the “priority has always been to protect public safety while keeping taxes as low as possible” and that she’s “pleased to have a budget that furthers that balance.”
Board chairman Harley Chappell also spoke to the agreement, saying he’s “happy” both parties have reached “common ground on a police budget that provides the resources SPS needs to deliver services that the community deserves.”
During the Monday, February 23 council meeting city manager Rob Costanzo and finance manager Kam Grewal did a joint presentation aimed at dispelling “misinformation” about the proposed budget. Council heard there has been $65 million in “commulative overfunding” of the SPS since 2024. Grewal said in 2025 the SPS spent $203 million of its approved budget of $240.1 million. “Doing the simple math, this leaves an underspend of almost $40 million – $39.8 to be precise, so that again is a very, very significant underspend.”
Costanzo said city hall is “taking an unsual step” by “effectively carrying forward the roughly $40 million that the SPS could not spend in 2025 and we are giving it back to them.”
“And so the bottom line is this – SPS requested $91.4 million more than the 2025 budget which they could not spend and the City is providing $84.2 million more than SPS could actually spend in 2025. That is a significant increase and at the same we need to stop the pattern of overbudgeting and ensure future requests are anchored to deliverable, evidence-based cost.”
Council heard concerning SPS proposed increases in officers in 2026 the provisional budget ($331.5 million) and the adjusted provisional budget ($284.5 million) fund 189 new police officers in 2026, bringing the total to 806 SPS officers, with no cuts to existing officers or staff.
Costanzo said that “on the surface” an underspend sounds like good news, “and if it were the result of a clear, sustainable efficiency that delivered the same service for less we would absolutely celebrate that, but that’s not what this reflects. What we’re seeing is a clear pattern.”
“Two years in a row, that points to systematic overbudgeting. Budgeting for costs that are not in practise materializing, and council, that matters,” Costanzo said, “because those are taxpayers dollars. When tens of millions are budgeted but not spent, it means residents have effectively been asked to fund an amount that wasn’t required to deliver the service as planned.”
Yet, the Surrey Police Union has raised “urgent concerns” that this latest proposal cuts $46,954,590 from the policing budget and imposes $13,806,182 in staff reductions. A union-issued press release sets $158,510 as the yearly cost of a police officer here, meaning that before taking into account impacts on equipment, IT and facilities, the staffing reduction alone represents the annual cost of approximately 87 cops.
Union president Ryan Buhrig said cutting nearly $47 million from policing “at the eleventh hour” while the city deals with the extortion crisis plaguing South Asian businesses and residents and the SPS is ramping up its operations “is reckless.”
“You cannot demand more policing, more visibility, and more capacity while simultaneously gutting the resources needed to deliver it,” Buhrig said.
In December, Locke had raised the spectre of an 18 per cent property tax in 2026 if council were to approve an SPB ask for a “very significant” and “excessive” increase of $91 million over the previous budget. “As mayor, I am not prepared to support this budget now as presented. It is extraordinarily excessive, and Surrey taxpayers cannot afford it,” she stated in a press release that was issued on Dec. 3.
That iteration of the SPS 2026 provisional budget was presented to council in a special closed meeting on Dec. 1. Council voted to have it disclosed to the public, with councillors Linda Annis, Mike Bose, Mandeep Nagra and Doug Elford opposed. “For 2026, a total net budget of $331,515,621 is required for adequate and effective policing and law enforcement in Surrey,” that document reads.
On Friday the Safe Surrey Coalition – a rival slate to the mayor’s Surrey Connect – issued a press release accusing Locke of engaging in a “petty vendetta” aimed at sabotaging the SPS. “This is not a budget decision. This is a personal vendetta being taken out on Surrey’s public safety,” the SSC claims.
Surrey Councillor Doug Elford, of the SSC, said Premier David Eby “is to blame for this budget as he bent a knee to the mayor of Surrey and allowed politicians to take control over our police service.”
Eby revealed on Feb. 3 an agreement had been struck between the provincial government and City of Surrey that vacancies on the SPB will only be filled by “mutual agreement between the mayor’s office and the provincial government through our public safety minister.
“The goal here is to deliver what local policing is meant to be for the people of Surrey – a police board that is reflective of the community, that directs police along the lines of community priorities,” he said.
Chappell defended the outgoing board members’ legacy, singing their praises after Eby announced their terms would not be renewed.
Meantime, Costanzo told council the intention is “not to cast blame” by exposing the underspend. “This is a very complex transition and so the expectation that they land precisely on budget year after year at this critical time, I mean, we’re dreaming in technicolor if that’s the expectation. But it’s happened two years in a row where it’s a significant number; it’s a very significant underspend and it’s time to hit the reset button. Again, you see we’re demonstrating clearly we’re not depriving them of funding, we’re giving them funding that’s pretty darn close to what they’re asking for because we want them to succeed and we want the SPS to be the best damn municipal police department in Canada.”