Start at the top

If Toronto’s police board won’t undertake even minor changes, how can it be trusted with major reforms?

That fundamental question comes to mind with police determined to proceed with senior-level promotions, despite an expert recommendation that non-essential upgrades be deferred.

A consultant’s report made public last month, by the highly regarded firm KPMG, listed promising ways to trim the city’s ballooning police budget, now bloated to beyond $1billion. Many of the measures involve bold innovation and major restructuring and can’t be undertaken immediately.

But some could be done quickly, such as a temporary deferral of non-essential promotions.

Instead of making every effort to cut costs, the Toronto Police Services Board added $27 million to this year’s budget and opted to punt the entire KPMG report to a task force with instructions to report back on “transformative” change by the end of this year. In doing so, the panel squandered an opportunity to show Torontonians it was genuinely dedicated to reining in expenses.

To his credit, Councillor Jon Burnside was motivated to speak out after Chief Mark Saunders announced that the promotion process for senior officers was set to begin on Monday. In a letter to the board and its chair, Andy Pringle, Burnside cited KPMG’s recommendation to defer promotions and urged the panel to press for the suspension of upgrades until the task force had issued its report on making the system more efficient.

“Change must start at the top,” wrote Burnside. He’s entirely correct. But instead of reform, it’s business as usual.

By ignoring calls for restraint and blithely proceeding with promotions, Saunders and the board are sending a clear signal: Don’t expect substantive change to Toronto’s gold-plated police force.