Let’s see the report

Torontonians have been told, year after year, that it’s virtually impossible to rein in the rampant cost of policing.

The latest budget presented by those in blue has soared to more than $1billion, despite years of dwindling crime rates. There’s little hope of finding significant savings since almost 90 per cent of spending is dedicated to covering salaries and benefits — and those are locked in under the terms of collective agreements.

At least that’s the official line. But it turns out the Toronto Police Services Board has had a consultant’s report in hand since last year outlining a series of potentially transformative proposals designed to dramatically reduce costs.

As reported by the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro and Betsy Powell, the $200,000 report by KPMG was meant to serve as a roadmap to reform, with recommendations including:

Replacing the city’s 17 large police divisions with smaller, cheaper “storefront” operations.

Hiring private-sector security firms to handle some tasks. Reducing police platoon sizes. Assigning more work now done by uniformed staff to lower-paid civilian employees. Slashing middle management. It’s difficult to evaluate the merits of these suggestions without seeing the KPMG report. But the police board has not made this analysis public and that’s unfortunate. There’s no good reason to keep it secret.

Board chair Andy Pringle has described the report as “an internal think” document. But it would be useful for the public to see this latest analysis on the contentious issue of police financing. After all, the public paid for the report, and has long been paying for a gold-plated police service.

The matter is especially pressing with the board scheduled to receive a revamped police budget on Thursday. When the panel received Chief Mark Saunders’ initial $1.015-billion spending plan last month — a 3.7-per-increase from the previous year — the board quite rightly sent it back for a trim.

Saunders was told to find “reductions and efficiencies.” But he is widely expected to return with minimal adjustments to the October budget plan, with any major changes accompanied by a warning that cuts will threaten the public’s security. At least that’s the pattern set by previous police chiefs when they faced similar requests for restraint.

The public would be in a better position to judge the merits of police budget proposals if the board released the KPMG report. Everything suggested in it needn’t be carried out; far from it. (Contracting police services out to private security firms seems especially problematic if done on a significant scale.) But sharing this independent analysis would give taxpayers useful context and provide a broader understanding of the issue.

The report may indeed be only “an internal think” document — but the public is entitled to think about this, too.

There’s no good reason for police services board to keep a consultant’s report secret