The spat that saw the City of North Vancouver accuse the surrounding District of North Vancouver of stiffing city taxpayers on policing costs is still simmering at city hall.
A city staff report in June stated the district had fallen $1.2 million behind on its share of paying the RCMP since 2012.
District chief administrative officer David Stuart told the North Shore News in June that the dispute was over an old agreement to share the cost of civilian support staff and building operations based on each municipality's population.
But with more policing activity required in the city, the district pushed to re-evaluate the agreement and payment formula.
The city and district paid for an independent consultant to review the policing needs in both municipalities and recommend a new sharing agreement over the summer. City staff got their first look at the consultant's report this week and it seems to vindicate the district.
"It appears at first light that the amounts that both parties are paying for this year appears to be almost equal with what the consultant is coming back with," said city CAO Ken Tolstam.
But Tolstam said staff have only begun looking at the numbers and it will likely take months before all the parties involved can hammer out an agreement. Likely, it will be based on a range of different measures like area covered, calls for service, population and criminal code offences.
But any update to the formula should wait until after the district has settled up the amount it owes based on the already existing agreement, Coun. Pam Bookham argued.
"I would like to know what effort has been made to get the over $1 million that's owed. That's a significant amount of money and I don't see how that can be just ignored or left sitting there for some future discussion," she said.
"It's very easy to use that as leverage. That's a pretty clear-cut situation.
Let's get the money, put it in our bank account and then carry on and start talking about some of these other outstanding matters."
Mayor Darrell Mussatto spoke up in favour of diplomacy as the budgetary snafu is sorted.
"I think, out of respect for working with the district, we'll continue to have these discussions because they are our neighbours. They work with us in many different areas and I think it's important we have a positive relationship with them," he said.
Council is expected to receive monthly updates on the status of all of the shared services it has with the district, including recycling, the North Shore Emergency Management Office, some fire services, the North Vancouver Recreation Commission, and North Vancouver Museum and Archives.
