Contract cleaners hired to look after Toronto police stations are being paid roughly minimum wage, contrary to previous reports that pegged average wages at more than $17 an hour.

Councillors on the government management committee were told Tuesday that heavy duty cleaners make $12.27 an hour including vacation pay, and light duty cleaners earn $10.59 hourly.

In Ontario, the general minimum wage is $10.25 an hour.

Under budget pressure, the police service in early 2011 proposed looking at contracting out cleaning. At that time, the staff briefing note on the subject said contract cleaning rates average $17.60 an hour.

The committee members were urged to vote against awarding a two-year contract extension worth $3.9 million to Impact Cleaning Services to service 25 police facilities.

“These are poverty wage jobs, that’s the bottom line,” said Preethy Sivakumar, coordinator of the Good Jobs For All Coalition, representing labour and community groups.

“This is a growing crisis; we are seeing precarious jobs everywhere,” Sivakumar said. “If you look at the impact on the next generation, there are people who don’t expect to have a decent job, they don’t expect to have any benefits.

“That’s wrong. That is not normal, and it’s not okay for city council to let that happen.”

Impact Cleaning Services was awarded the police contract in February for one year.

Tuesday, the committee rejected the submission from the Good Jobs Coalition and voted to extend the contract from February 2013 to February 2015.

In addition, the committee granted staff the authority to approve a second, two-year extension in the future, which would see the contract continue to Jan. 31, 2017, at an extra cost of $4 million.

The committee was told it would cost $800,000 a year more in labour costs to do the same work with city staffers.

Councillor Pam McConnell, who opposed renewing Impact’s contract, said the savings are less than earlier projections that concluded the taxpayers could save more than $2 million annually.

“This was supposed to save the police $2.2 million, and it ends up saving $800,000 — and all of it really is on the backs of the workers,” McConnell said.

“At the end of the day, we make people work for very little.”

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Councillor Doug Ford, who has said he wants to outsource everything that isn’t nailed down, defended the police contract as a good deal.

“The taxpayers of Toronto saved $800,000 with zero impact, I repeat, zero impact on service,” Ford said. “This is a great example of how we can achieve operational efficiencies and service efficiencies through strategic outsourcing.”