A HARD BARGAIN
Chief Bill Blair pitched a 0% increase for police budget, but next year’s staff pay levels yet to be settled,
Chief Bill Blair’s proposed zero increase in next year’s Toronto police budget has set the stage for some hard bargaining when contract talks begin next week.
Blair is recommending the civilian oversight police board freeze the service’s budget request at 2014 levels — $957.7 million.
That falls in line with the city manager’s target request that all city divisions, agencies, boards and commissions deliver a zero-per-cent increase in 2015.
But, as Blair notes in his report to the board, that does not include “the impact of any salary settlement” and the Toronto Police Association has no plans to forego wage demands. The contract expires Dec. 31.
“Blair is not involved in the bargaining side,” TPA president Mike McCormack said Friday. The TPA represents 8,300 officers.
“We haven’t settled our wages for 2015, so how can he factor that in? The only thing this budget is based on is the current salaries with the current staffing model.” Eighty-nine per cent of the service’s $1.02-billion budget goes to salaries, benefits and premium pay. Blair’s zero-per-cent increase request is a “good start,” Mayor-elect John Tory said Friday while touring the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. He will be sworn in on Dec. 2. Any pay hikes will place added pressure on his promise to keep property tax increases at or below the rate of inflation. Tory said he hopes negotiations balance the need for “good policing” while compensating people fairly, “but also to be mindful of the stresses and strains we face on the financial front at the city.” Former mayoral candidate David Soknacki, who made policing a cornerstone of his platform, said Blair is not addressing fundamental issues relating not just to costs but the policing model. “What is the appropriate amount of policing in our city? What type of police service do we need in the 21st century?” he said Friday. As he did during the election campaign, Soknacki is calling for a strategic review of the police force.
Former mayoral candidate David Soknacki said Blair is not addressing issues relating to costs and the policing model
“There is a very big problem,” he said. Former Toronto mayor John Sewell, head of a police watchdog group, said while Blair’s call for a freeze is a break from the past, “I happen to think rather than flatlining there needs to be a substantial reduction,” either by changing the shift structure or eliminating the two-officer-percar requirement.
The police service’s net budget has increased 2.3 times as fast as the cost of living in the last decade.
This week, the civilian oversight police board launched a website warning “there needs to be a break” in the cycle of pay increases “far exceeding” those received by other municipal and private-sector workers. In 2011, the board signed a deal giving officers an 11.4-per-cent increase over four years.
The chief’s report on the 2015 operating budget request is on the agenda of Thursday’s monthly board meeting.