Victoria city council has voted to approve two fewer officers than requested in VicPD’s budget, giving taxpayers a bit of a break on the proposed property tax increase.
This has been done in an effort to reduce the tax rate for 2026 which has seen cuts in all City departments.
On November 7th, 2025, Victoria’s 2026-30 Draft Financial Plan was presented to city council that included a proposed tax hike of 13.3%.
Since then, council has been looking at ongoing programs and services to see where costs could be reduced, eliminated or deferred to another year.
As of late February, the property tax hike was reduced to around 10.7%.
In a special committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, March 3rd, which saw the council trying to make further reductions to the Draft Financial Plan, Councillor Jeremy Caradonna put forth a motion to cut two proposed new police officers from VicPD’s budget.
While motivating his motion, Caradonna noted that Victorians pay the most per capita for police of any BC municipality.
“If the full police budget request had been granted… the total would have been $743 per person,” stated Caradonna.
“That is nearly $100 more per person than even Vancouver pays, at $655 per capita.”
He also recognized that VicPD says they have a shortage of resources, but pointed to the City’s overall lack of available resources.
“I think the two things can be true at the same time—that the VicPD needs more resources, and Victorians are already paying the most in the province for policing per capita,” Caradonna continued.
“If both things are true, it suggests a deep systemic problem in how policing is funded in this city, because the current model is not working.”
Councillor Krista Loughton seconded Caradonna’s motion, saying that she’s been hearing from neighbourhood associations and many residents that Victoria is spending too much on the symptoms of the city’s problems, and not enough on the solutions.
Ultimately, the motion was approved by a vote of 5–4 with Councillors Chris Coleman, Marg Gardiner, Stephen Hammon and Mayor Marianne Alto opposed.
Gardiner remarked that this motion resembled “defunding the police,” but this notion is untrue, as VicPD’s force will actually increase by 20 officers this year.
Furthermore, VicPD’s budget is still increasing substantially.
In the last decade, VicPD’s budget has nearly doubled, going from $50.6 million to a proposed $86.8 million in 2026.
In 2025, VicPD’s budget accounted for 23% of the City of Victoria’s entire budget.
