The City of Trail is on track to pay about one-fifth as much in RCMP overtime costs for the current fiscal year compared to the last one.
Figures included in city council’s agenda package this week show that in 2024-25, the city was on the hook for $611,486 in overtime for 6,098 hours worked.
However, there isn’t a perfect correlation between the two figures, because overtime isn’t usually paid out in the same month it is worked.
About $50,000 of the bill was due to the RCMP bringing in additional resources to investigate the case of Brenden Rothweiler, who is accused of shooting a Fruitvale woman in the head more than two and a half years ago.
In the first six months of the 2025-26 fiscal year, April to September, the city paid $60,650 for 881 hours of overtime.
City manager Colin McClure said those figures are straight wages and don’t include travel time and per diems. We have asked the city why the hourly OT cost last year ($100) was so much higher than this year ($69).
City councillor Nick Cashol, a former RCMP officer himself, said he appreciated receiving the information.
“I’m not going to question the need for this overtime, as we can’t compromise on public safety, but it does come at a cost,” he said.
Cashol said the overtime bill was in part due to the RCMP’s “unsustainable unlimited, full-pay sick leave model,” which he said was criticized in a July 2025 report by a police oversight body.
Based on its population, the City of Trail picks up 70 per cent of the total policing bill.
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