The improvement of police operations in rural areas is on the top of the minds of reeves in Manitoba.

Rising crime rates have caused policing costs to be the fastest-growing part of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities’ budget.

Stats Canada says the crime rate outside of Winnipeg was 42 per cent higher than in the city three years ago.

Rural Manitoba deals with an extremely high rate of disturbing the peace offences.

Manitoba’s rate is just over 1500 incidents per capita, which is 53 times higher than the lowest rate in Canada of 29 incidents per capita.