Last November, the Toronto Police Services Board approved a budget request from Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders that includes a significant increase to the force’s operating budget for 2016. The requested 2.67-per-cent boost, which would take total police spending over the $1-billion mark for the first time, was approved despite the board’s mandate to reduce police spending.

We believe that if we are ever going to get runaway police spending under control, city council must reject this request and hold the police to the same target that every other agency, board, commission and department of the city is being asked to meet — a 1-per-cent budget reduction. This is the responsible course of action for council to follow, and the province’s Police Services Act gives it the power to do so.

Having gone through the painful, protracted budget dance with the police service year after year, we have concluded that the police will not voluntarily make the fundamental changes that are required to create the effective, financially sustainable police service that the people of Toronto deserve. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the city, as the funder of this service, to finally draw the line and say enough is enough.

Under our leadership, the police services board took critical steps to introduce change. In 2014, we commissioned an external review by KPMG to develop recommendations for institutional and operational change in our model of providing services. It was our clear expectation that implementation of these changes would begin with the 2016 budget.

We were compelled, as chair and vice chair, to propose this unprecedented action of retaining our own consultant. In 2011, the board had accepted the service’s offer to conduct just such a comprehensive review to assist in achieving a 10-per-cent reduction by 2012. However, that review was not completed until 2013 and produced only negligible cost savings.

The board’s response to the KPMG report was so enthusiastic that it incorporated questions about transformative change in the candidate interviews for the police chief’s job.

It ought to have been clear to an incoming chief that there was an urgency to meet mandated schedules. And yet, by the time Chief Saunders found it convenient to meet with the consultants, it was too late for the 2016 budget process. Such delays are typical of the tactics employed by the police service when faced with pressures for meaningful change.

Sadly, this pattern is consistent with our experience going back to 2005. Year after year, despite requests by the Police Services Board to control costs, the chief consistently brought forward budget requests that were millions of dollars too high, forcing the board to fight hard to gain even small reductions in expenditures.

As the record will show, since 2007 the board has asked for systematic cost saving measures involving changes in staff utilization, organizational structure and business processes. It has directed the chief to implement measures such as reduction in managerial and supervisory staffing levels, administrative and clerical support allocations, outsourcing of non-core administrative services, stricter controls on premium pay and acting assignments to identify any savings that may be applied to the 2007 operating budget.

Yet, year after year, the budget has grown. Our decision to recommend that the board retain its own consultant and find its own way to get control over the police budget was the last straw. We believe that if the police services in the UK could reduce policing costs by 30 per cent through modernization, surely 10 per cent was attainable for us in Toronto.

Recent history makes clear that the necessary changes will not come voluntarily, nor are they likely to be led by the police service. When Chief Saunders spoke after his budget request was approved by the board last December, we heard the same small thinking and spirit of resistance we have always heard from the police service. Sadly, we must conclude that the new chief is too much a product of the old school to lead the force in new directions.

Therefore, it is up to the board to hold him accountable on behalf of the people of Toronto. As chair and vice chair, we facilitated the development of a solid plan for crucial change by some of the best experts in the field. We are disappointed that the board has failed to follow it. And since the board has failed to act in the public interest, city council must step in to do it for them.

Alok Mukherjee was chair of the Toronto Police Services Board from 2005-2015. Michael Thompson is a city councillor. He was a member of the Toronto Police Services Board from 2010-2014 and vice chair from 2012-2014.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: