The board that oversees London police will ask a provincial body to force the city to cough up an extra $7.2 million — the first time the board has ever sought to overturn a city council decision.

By a 3-2 vote this week, with Mayor Matt Brown and Coun. Stephen Turner opposing it, the police board is taking its claim to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission. But the deeper issue is this: The wage bill for police has grown explosively and driven the police budget to double in 14 years, from $48 million in 2002 to $97 million sought by police this year.

That Brown opposed the move to appeal surprises no one — mayors across Ontario have expressed concerns about soaring police wages. Turner declined further comment on Friday.

Coun. Phil Squire, often a voice of financial restraint on council, said he backs Brown and Turner voting against the appeal to the provincial commission.

“It’s their choice, their decision and it will be dealt with in due course,” he said.

But even the official in charge of the police budget — and someone who voted to challenge council before the civilian commission — says that quickly-rising police pay has put public safety at risk.

“I share taxpayers’ frustrations about the escalation of police costs, Our ability to protect public safety will become increasingly compromised,” police budget chairperson Paul Paolatto said.

Labour costs for police have grown quickly because municipal politicians and police boards have caved in to policing contract demands, he said.

“Police boards have been failing taxpayers across the province,” Paolatto said. “I’m frankly embarrassed.”

His concern was born out by Ontario’s latest pay disclosures for the province’s highest-paid public servants, those making $100,000 or more in pay and taxable benefits and listed on the so-called annual Sunshine List that came out Thursday. Of the nearly 700 municipal-level employees in London on the list, the dominant categories in numbers are police and firefighters.

“The single greatest pressure on Ontario municipalities is related to (the rising costs) of emergency services,” Brown said. “Steps need to be (taken) to move us into a sustainable situation.”

Those pressures drove city council to draw the line at a 2.5-per-cent budget increase for police this year, a stance that led the police board to seek two things from the civilian commission:

The police force wants to add 13 hires but says the cash from council only pays for seven — a claim Brown disputes.

Police also want the city to set aside $3.3 million to cover what they expect will be an eye-popping 3.9-per-cent raise in 2019, when London’s contract deal with the police bumps up their pay to the average of 11 other forces in Ontario.

While Paolatto’s heart is with taxpayers, he says he’s obligated to follow the Police Service Act and seek adequate funding.

“We can’t surrender our responsibility for public safety because this is an expensive business,” he said — an assessment shared with police board members Jeannette Eberhard and Michael Deeb.

Paolatto expects it may take the provincial commission as long as eight months to make a decision — but in the meantime, the city and police should seek a compromise.

“Throughout the process there are exit ramps,” he said. “It is our hope that we would be able (to compromise).”

But Brown believes police have wiggle room in their budget to hire the extra six officers. Rather than hire all the new officers at once, police could spread out the hires, he said.

Police could also use a $700,000 surplus left over from last year — a figure first made public this week.

But Paolatto says that even if the force could get by this year, it can’t the next three years — and since council has set its own four-year budget, it’s better the police board and council sort out the disagreement now rather than push back the problem to another day.

The positions whose funding is in dispute are two officers in human trafficking, two in foot patrol, one in use-of-force training and a civilian in court services. Those aren’t trivial hires, Paolatto said. Human trafficking alone has as many as 300 victims in London.

Business cases for the hires were made to the board but not made public, he said.

All told, police are seeking $397 million over four years, and that doesn’t include the adjustment in 2019 salaries expected to add $3.9 million. Even without the increase they seek, they would get $96.3 million this year, about one-tenth of the city budget.

With files by Norman De Bono, Free Press reporter