The Toronto Police Service is asking the city to approve a $1.002 billion operating budget in 2017, two million dollars less than this year’s record budget and halting a more-than-decade-long upward trend.

Mayor John Tory, a member of the civilian police oversight board, called it a “huge accomplishment” because the service found $47.4 million in spending reductions, almost half from a hiring freeze.

“This is the first police budget in the last eleven …that actually shows a reduction in the police service budget,” Tory said Thursday after the board approved the budget request. The proposed spending plan now moves to the city’s budget committee.

The TPS budget request, however, fell short of council’s requested 2.6 per cent reduction, which would mean another $24 million would need to be cut. Last summer, council voted to reduce all city budgets by 2.6 per cent.

“I think we have to look at the glass as being half full instead of otherwise,” because the trendline is going down, Tory responded.

“It’s a beginning, because as we are able to implement the recommendations of the transformational task force and modernize policing…(there are) opportunities for further rationalization and further opportunities to have better policing for less money.”

But the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition was unimpressed. “The case has not been made for why the police should be awarded any funds above and beyond what city council has requested, namely $978.6 million,” former mayor John Sewell wrote in a letter to the board.

The so-called transformational police task force has identified $100 million in reductions and savings over the next three years. The average number of deployed officers is set to drop from 5,072 in 2017 to 4,767 in 2019.

Tory said he would continue to press the province not to withdraw $14.9 million, annual funding tied to a larger complement of officers. The service should not be “penalized” for trying to contain costs with a modernization plan and hiring moratorium, he said.

In its budget document, the service said that since 89 per cent of the budget relates to salaries, “further reduction options simply do not exist.” The salary settlement in last year’s contract – signed by the board and police association - added an extra $17 million to the 2017 budget.

“Furthermore, until current service delivery transitions completely to the new model, further reductions would significantly risk the Chief’s ability to provide adequate and effective policing.”

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