Time to trim police ranks?
As Toronto City Hall gears up for the annual budget debate, the biggest challenge councillors face involves the costs of policing the city. They’re huge, inching toward $1 billion, and they can’t be trimmed through easy “efficiencies.” But that doesn’t preclude a thoughtful discussion over just how many officers the city needs, and what it expects them to do.
At the end of the day, shrinking the force and the demands we make of it may be the only option.
Costs are hard to contain because 90 per cent of the department’s budget goes to salaries and benefits. Those are pretty much untouchable because they’re covered under a contract approved by Mayor Rob Ford’s administration. The city is obliged to give officers a pay hike of more than 11 per cent over four years, which must be paid even if the city freezes the overall police budget. The contract also contains plums like city-funded massages and a requirement to pay $1.4 million annually for officers’ laundry.
Tony Veneziano, the department’s chief administrative officer, notes that all this will swell the budget by up to $28 million each year until 2015. And that doesn’t take into account inflationary factors such as gasoline prices. As a result, freezing the budget would require a real $30 million cut or so from the remaining10 per cent of the budget that isn’t covered by the contract. That’s a lot of paper clips and bullets. All this simply shows how tough it will be to find real savings. The city’s budget currently stands at about $9.3 billion. Ford is intent on limiting an expected residential property tax increase to no more than 1.75 per cent, and all city departments need to practise restraint. The city can’t keep jacking up the police budget forever while cutting services like snow clearance, programs helping the disadvantaged, swimming pools and park maintenance. One option is to trim the size of the force. With 5,400 uniformed officers, there’s an argument to be made that Toronto has more than its share of police.
According to Statistics Canada, Toronto had 212 officers per 100,000 people last year. Peel Region, just next door, managed to protect its 1.3 million people with just150 officers per100,000. In Halton, they do the job with 126 police per 100,000.
Why does Toronto need so much more policing than every other neighbouring jurisdiction? Officials, including police board chair Alok Mukherjee, say one reason is because a million or more commuters flood into Toronto every working day. But that seems exaggerated.
The Star’s Paul Moloney reports that travel studies by the University of Toronto, Statistics Canada and city hall show an average net influx of just 175,000 people on weekdays.
No one would deny that Toronto has unique policing needs and requires more officers than surrounding municipalities. And yes, some cities, including Montreal, do have a higher complement of cops. But this is southern Ontario and crime rates are remarkably low. The trick is deciding where to draw the line.
As part of the budget process, council should be asking hard questions about how many officers the city really needs. How many are truly front-line and essential? And just what policing services is the city prepared to do without to hold down costs? There are no easy choices. But something has to give.