Alok Mukherjee
Chair, Toronto Police Services Board
Sure as winter comes every year, we are, once again, witnessing the annual questioning of the police budget. Reporters, editorial writers, certain individuals known for their scepticism on matters related to policing and concerned City Councillors are, once again, expressing worry about the growth of the police budget. However, except saying that they would like to see an actual decrease in the budget, they have offered very few, if any, options for cutting the budget.
The few suggestions that have been made will either produce insignificant reductions or yield temporary savings that will have to be made up in the future, with a worse impact in the long run.
There is no question that sustainability of cost of policing is fast emerging as a critical issue for police governance bodies and municipalities.
In Toronto, over the past five years, the Police Services Board and the police service led by Chief Bill Blair have been working very hard to grapple with this issue. The following breakdown throws some interesting light.
Net Budget Increases, Including Salary Settlements – 2005-2009
Year ...Net $ Increase (in millions) .....% increase
2005 ...$38.6 ......................................5.70
2006 ...$36.3 ......................................5.07
2007 ...$33.8 ......................................4.49
2008 ...$35.8 ......................................4.55
2009 ...$32.8 ......................................3.99
As the figures show, despite the fact that during these years the Toronto Police Services Board negotiated two collective agreements with the Toronto Police Association, the annual net increases have generally maintained a downward trend. As well, in those five years, the police have returned to the City unspent funds to the tune of $20 million. And we have done so while absorbing City-requested reductions totalling $22 million in the operating budget.
We have followed a downward trendline in our budgeting at a time when the City responded to the crime situation in Toronto by increasing the strength of the police service by an additional 450 officers. This included 200 officers whom Chief Blair took out of plainclothes and put in uniform and the hiring of 250 new officers. These new officers were partly paid for by the province out of its 1000 Officer program. This significant increase in staffing, while adding to the payroll, did not increase overtime costs due to stringent controls.
Controls have, in fact, been implemented not only on this portion of the salary account but also on the entire non-salary account. These controls are part of a comprehensive strategy being followed by the Board and the Command under Chief Blair in how the business of policing is conducted in Toronto. It includes, for example, promoting a culture of managing for value, obtaining maximum efficiencies in our use of resources like fuel and electricity, reducing waste, doing more with less and getting the most out of the funds we receive from sources like the province.
At the same time, the Board and the Service are working closely with the police association to make our system of shift scheduling more efficient and effective. After over a quarter of a century of living with the same system, this work, when completed, will provide better alignment between deployment and calls for service for the community and better work-off work balance for our officers.
In terms of our biggest cost – salary and benefits – the Board has engaged in hard negotiations with the police association in 2005 and 2008. In 2008, the arbitrator’s award that followed a prolonged and tough negotiation included only a pay increase that was consistent with the industry standard and small improvements in medical benefits. Given the excessive demands and inflexible position of the association – demands that would have cost many more millions of dollars – the arbitrator’s award was actually a very responsible one from the taxpayer’s perspective.
I believe that the approach we have taken will have a lasting impact. We are, however, saddled with patterns of increases and contract settlements from prior years.
For example, in 2002, the police association was given “retention pay” as part of contract settlement. Meant to address an immediate need to prevent officers from leaving the Toronto Police Service, the Board of the day, with City Council’s support, agreed to a permanent provision to pay a 3%, 6% and 9% increase in salary to officers after 7, 15 and 23 years of service. While it may have made sense as a solution for a problem being faced at the time, it makes no sense whatever as a permanent giveaway.
Anyone who has sat at a bargaining table knows that a concession once given is not easily taken away. Cumulatively, retention pay has added millions to the payroll, even though the problem of retention is long gone.
Another significant pressure was caused by the decision of the provincial government in 1999 to download the cost of court security on to the municipalities. The province opens court houses; the local taxpayer pays. Thus, the cost of court security in Toronto has risen from $15 million in 1990 to $48 million in 2009.
The McGuinty government has acknowledged this pressure on municipalities and has agreed to gradually take over the cost of court security once again.
Cost of court security is an example of how decisions and directions by other levels of government have added to the cost of municipal policing. Unlike Ontario, the Federal government has refused to discuss its responsibility for the cost of policing in areas that fall squarely within its jurisdiction. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, in a report two years ago, calculated that between 7 to 15% of the cost of municipal policing is directly attributable to the Federal jurisdiction. For Toronto, that would amount to at least $60 million a year.
It is worth remembering that a 1% increase in property tax equals approximately $15 million. In other words, Torontonians are subsidising the Federal government’s policing interests by well over 4% of their property taxes.
Thus, between paying for court security and providing policing services that come under the Federal jurisdiction Toronto’s property taxpayer spends over $100 million in policing that it ought not to have to.
When discussing the cost of policing, it is important, I believe, that we not lose sight of all these factors. They include historical decisions made at the bargaining table as well as the significant extent to which Toronto pays for costs that properly belong to other levels of government. It is within this context that the Toronto Police Services Board and the Toronto Police Service have, in the last five years, made every effort to hold the line on the cost of policing in this City.
For those of us involved with the governance of policing, the cost of policing is not an issue that we worry about once a year. It is an ongoing issue. The Canadian Association of Police Boards and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have recognized that this is a structural, systemic and political issue and needs to be dealt with as such. The scope of policing has expanded significantly, and municipal police services are taking on responsibilities in areas that are not strictly local. It is imperative that all stakeholders – police boards, police chiefs, municipalities, provincial and federal governments – come together to look for long term solutions to the challenge of making the cost of policing sustainable and affordable.
This is what we in police boards are striving towards. For us, the police budget is not an annual dance.
I have personally spoken on this subject numerous times. The two articles that follow describe the dimensions of the challenge and offer some solutions that, in my view, we should pursue.
