Police board may lift hiring freeze
Union leader hints at progress on staffing and morale issues
After launching a web-based campaign warning that a hiring freeze is compromising public safety, Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack says the police service has agreed to revisit the three-year moratorium.
“The association has been in dialogue with the chief and the chair around the concerns of our uniform and civilian members with regards to staffing and morale issues,” McCormack said in an emailed video link message sent to union members. “Through these discussions we have achieved meaningful solutions that will have significant positive impact on the wellness of our members.”
McCormack promised to put out “a detailed communiqué” this week.
It’s unclear exactly what the solutions are.
As part of a task-force-recommended plan to modernize the service — and contain the $1-billion police budget — the force last year implemented a three-year hiring and promotion freeze to trim $60 million by 2019.
But the union says the hiring freeze has driven down morale and left officers feeling burned out.
Toronto Police Services Board chair Andy Pringle said Tuesday: “I am delighted that the Toronto Police Association is fully supportive of modernizing the Toronto Police Service and that we have reached an agreement for the target number of 4,750 police officers for the city of Toronto.
“I am also looking forward to working with the association to collectively articulate a new model of service delivery for the Toronto Police Service that places community safety at the core,” Pringle added.
On Tuesday evening, McCormack said Pringle and police Chief Mark Saunders have been “receptive” to lifting the moratorium in light of the fact that an unexpectedly high number of employees have left the force this year.
There have been 301 employees leave this year, including 191 uniform police officers.
On average, about 100 to 150 police employees retire or resign each year.
“They’re going to look at the numbers and make sure it’s adequately staffed,” McCormack said.
This year, the final report of the Transformational Task Force said a moratorium on hiring and promotions “will allow the service to ensure that it has the right type and number of members for the new service delivery model, and the leanest possible management structure.”
Most of the $60 million in savings over three years will be achieved through “naturally occurring retirements and departures” and “will allow the service to hold the line on the cost of policing for three years.”
“We can’t continue to finance the kind of growth in the size of the police budget that we’ve had,” Mayor John Tory, a police board member who struck the task force, said in 2016.
Any sign that the police budget is growing would make it harder for Tory to push other city departments and agencies to freeze their 2018 budgets at this year’s levels. Policing costs are the single biggest line item on the city’s tax-funded operating budget.
McCormack told the Star the city could still meet its police-budgetreduction targets with new hires because of the exodus of staff. Any new hires would be months away because the freeze cancelled training classes, typically offered three times per year, he added.
Pushback from the police union has grown in intensity this summer and has included rumblings of job action. Last month, the union launched a website to draw attention to the fact Toronto has 500 fewer officers than it did back in 2010, with a plan to cut another 400 by 2019.
That would bring the service down to 4,766 officers, while the number of civilian employees would be reduced to 1,850 from 2,220.
McCormack has warned the reduction is compromising public safety, while his members are at a “crisis point” resulting from overwork caused by staffing and budget cuts.
“Many divisions are struggling to fill even half of the needed patrol cars at the start of the shift. Quite simply,
“We have achieved meaningful solutions that will have significant positive impact on the wellness of our members.” MIKE MCCORMACK POLICE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT
we now don’t have enough police officers to meet demand,” the union website says.
Police brass have responded by accusing the union of ignoring the facts, such as a Statistics Canada report that shows Toronto is the safest big city in Canada.
Saunders and other senior staff have also pointed a finger at the association for resisting measures that would increase productivity and allow for more-effective officer deployment.
The task force, co-chaired by Saunders and Pringle, called for a moreefficient scheduling system compared to the current one, which requires consistent deployment, regardless of the time of day or demand. The task force also concluded the service could free up front-line staff if a policy requiring two officers in a patrol car between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. was altered, so that single officers could respond to certain calls.
Both require a negotiated change to the collective agreement with the police association. McCormack said the association is discussing both issues after receiving requested data.