The amount Toronto taxpayers will save by contracting-out cleaning at police facilities will be less than a third of the original estimates.

Instead of saving $2.5 million a year, budget papers indicate the annual savings will be only about $800,000.

The city has pondered putting cleaning services out for contract for years, but council didn’t go along with the idea until last year, after Mayor Rob Ford was elected and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, vowed to outsource anything that wasn’t nailed down.

Under the Ford administration, garbage pick-up west of Yonge St. and TTC bus cleaning have also been outsourced.

The savings on the police contract fall “wildly short of the $2.5 million that was predicted,” said Councillor Pam McConnell, who opposed extending the contract.

The $2.5-million figure was extrapolated from a private-sector quote in 2003 to clean four police buildings: police headquarters and three stations.

If applied to all police buildings, the savings would come to $2.5 million annually, then-chief Julian Fantino said in a report to city council.

Fantino said the police service had no problem with contract cleaning and was ready to proceed. But the issue languished until after Ford’s election in October 2010.

A report for the 2011 budget suggested the city could save $1 million a year by contracting out about 40 per cent of the police station cleaning.

Despite objections that the city was replacing well-paying jobs with “poverty wage jobs,” council awarded a one-year contract for cleaning 25 police facilities last year and later extended the contract until February 2015.

Councillors were told heavy-duty contract cleaners make $12.27 an hour and light-duty cleaners earn $10.59 hourly, while the city had been paying $23.83 and $22.60 an hour, respectively.

The contract was opposed by the Good Jobs for All Coalition of community and labour groups.

“The question is: What kind of employer should the city be?” said coalition coordinator Preethy Sivakumar. “If it wants to be a model employer, the city shouldn’t be turning good jobs into poverty-wage jobs.”

“Given the number of precarious jobs that already exist, the city should be looking at ways to prevent that from happening.”

However, Councillor Ford made no apology for supporting moves that reduce the burden on taxpayers. “It’s always worth doing if you can save money,” Ford said.

McConnell said the city hasn’t saved on administration, so the bulk of the savings come from paying cleaners less and providing fewer benefits.

“In the long run, the only thing we’ve done is make workers more vulnerable,” McConnell said. “I think it would be better to put the money into their pockets and have them be able to support their families properly.”