On their own time, professionally trained police officers, subject to accountability and oversight, are best suited to perform paid-duty assignments on construction and road work sites, says Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association.

“I’d rather have a police officer out on the street directing traffic then some guy who is picked up by some security company at $12 an hour and say, ‘Go out here and direct traffic and see what happens,’” McCormack said Tuesday.

The union boss was reacting to criticism from several city councillors who are questioning why already well-paid police officers are cashing in on lucrative moonlighting assignments when the city took steps, in 2011, to curtail the need for paid-duty policing.

Three years later, demand for off-duty officers has soared, with 3,047 raking in $26.1 million in 2013.

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While city divisions, such as Toronto Water and Transportation Services, have reduced paid-duty expenditures to $2.1 million last year — making up just 9 per cent of the total spending — private organizations, construction companies, utilities and special event organizers have picked up the slack.

“At no direct cost to taxpayers,” McCormack says, adding the Toronto Police Service is not alone in having officers-for-hire.

“Practically every major municipality in North America has officers engaged in paid duties,” he said. While other places might not have Toronto’s volume of paid-duty work, “these other jurisdictions aren’t booming and having the construction, and a lot of them don’t have major sporting teams.”

McCormack says a key reason paid duty exists is to address the requirements of provincial legislation for certain traffic control situations, particularly around road construction.

“The Highway Traffic Act stipulates that only police officers are allowed to direct traffic,” he says.

A security guard or an auxiliary officer can “man barricades,” but when a road is closed, and someone is needed to “actually direct traffic, you have to be trained and a professional police officer to do that.”

McCormack acknowledges some members of the public are “frustrated” when they see officers standing around construction sites earning $68 an hour — a pay hike kicked in this year — for a minimum three-hour shift.

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“I get that,” he says. “They’re stuck in traffic and the police officer isn’t actively engaged in that … ensuring traffic flows because that’s what people want.”

McCormack played down a suggestion that the union would fight any attempt to get rid of paid duty.

“I’d have to look the framework and the context of reducing it and what was the objective.”

The suggestion was made in a 2011 Toronto police feasibility study, rejecting the idea that the Vancouver Traffic Authority Program could be implemented in Toronto.

Non-union special constables perform traffic control in Vancouver. In 2011, they were paid an hourly wage of between $28 and $36 an hour, the study says.

The feasibility study also warned about the negative effect on officers if there was any attempt made to eliminate the millions earned in paid duty salary.

“This could quickly escalate into a major morale concern for the (Toronto Police Services) Board and the community,” the study said.