WHEREAS the cost to municipalities of providing police based victim services continues to escalate due to the increased demand for the service; AND WHEREAS the Ministry of the Solicitor General initially funded 50 of the cost of the program; AND WHEREAS the Ministry of the Solicitor General has maintained its funding expenditure at a fixed amount for many years; AND WHEREAS providing assistance to victims of crime is a social service, which is primarily the financial responsibility of the Province: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the UBCM continue to strongly endorse the victim services program and that the Province be requested to fund the program on a 5050 cost shared basis as it was originally established.
Ministry of Public Safety Solicitor General The Province funds over 160 victim service programs across British Columbia. This includes over 90 police-based programs and over 70 community-based programs. Police-based victim service programs in communities over 5,000 population are cost shared 5050 between the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General PSSG and local governments. This cost-sharing approach recognizes the critical role that police-based victim services play in the police response to crime and trauma, particularly in the area of crisis response. While the funding formula determines the equitable distribution of provincial funding across the province, it does not limit or prescribe the level of funding of police-based victim services within a community. Some local governments have chosen to fund police-based victim service programs above and beyond the cost-share amount funded by PSSG. This decision is up to each individual local government. In 200809, PSSG updated the funding formula for all victim service programs and increased base funding by 2.7 million. This amounted to an average funding increase of 22 per victim service program.