Interest has continued to be shown at the proposal of a shared police service between Morden and Winkler, recommended in a review by retired Winnipeg Police Chief Devon Clunis.

To better understand what a shared service would look like members of each corresponding boards have met, along with a provincial representative and key management personnel including police chiefs and city managers.

"We've brought them into the loop to task them with providing their expertise in doing the work. To report back to the working group to provide oversight and direction on those decisions, with a purpose of officially and prudently moving forward the shared services agenda," Morden Police Board Chair Rich Harries explains.

The Clunis review says a shared service would allow more efficient use of service resources and improve service quality to the communities they serve

A paper was shared at the board meeting, based on the Clunis consultation report.

The paper gives nine proposals to take if the communities move towards a shared service.

1) A shared K-9 Unit: Winkler and Morden have canine units, in the Clunis report he notes there isn't sufficient work to justify each having their own. With the service time of a canine dog is seven to eight years maximum, with Morden’s dog going on six years by the time Winkler has its dog trained, Morden’s may be ready to retire.

2) 24-7 On-Duty Coverage: Currently, when all police members are off-duty, the officer on call must get into uniform and that causes a delayed response.  According to Chief Neduzak, 24-7 coverage could be implemented without too many issues. Currently, there is a plan in place between the two services that have an officer on duty from one or the other community. A challenge is Winkler officers’ can not work past 4 a.m. without overtime pay. This contract clause will remain in effect until 2019.

3) Traffic Services/Traffic Enforcement: This would be the easiest step to take according to Chief Neduzak, having either community’s service involved in these actions.

4) Community Resource Officer: With Morden Police Service goals for safety education in the community. A community Resource officer is directly involved in the community being pro-active in organizing programs such as Crime Stoppers, Block Watch, involving the community and increasing awareness.

5) Wellness Officer Program: Police face a greater risk and stress on the job, which can have an effect on their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. Wellness programs aid in reducing such health issues.

6) Call taking and dispatch: Morden, Winkler, and Altona have chosen Brandon to handle their call taking a dispatch when local staff is not available. Morden officers are pleased with the Brandon service. The service is expensive and creating a local dispatch system would require staff, radios, computers and additional space. For the present, the Brandon dispatch system will be continued to be used.

7) Specialized Investigations (detectives): Specialized investigations take a lot of time and effort having one or two officers who specialize could improve efficiency and reduce duplication of work.  The paper says the specialization needs to be made in terms of greater safety if an officer chooses a specialization, their on-the-street work needs to be replaced.

8) Identification Services: Morden currently runs identification services through the other police services at no additional charge. This includes identification, investigation firearms, bomb detection and handling, emergency response teams, major crime investigations. As the community grows there is a potential there could be charges for those services.

9: Court Unit Functions: This would be considered the most difficult area in a shared function. Court files cannot be transmitted electronically, presented in paper form this would require officers to take them from one city to the other. If centralized in one location an arrested person would need to be transported to the community where the files are held.  

"One of the things we saw in the review was this opportunity in Winkler and Morden to ‘aggressively share services’. There were several pieces whether it was K-9, or the identification unit, or traffic that was identified," says Harries.

Other topics discussed at the Police Board meeting was the hiring of a second Special Constable, the early stages of discussion of a tactical vehicle for the Regional tactical team, and an update on the hiring of a second sergeant with plans on choosing their second sergeant at the end of April.