Police Services Board looking to address ‘escalating’ cost of policing

TORONTO – The Toronto Police Services Board says police salaries are an “escalating” cost that cannot be ignored when collective bargaining begins on November 10.

Now, the board has launched torontopolicebargaining.com to signal its position: policing in Toronto is too expensive.

The website says 89 per cent of the Toronto Police Services’ nearly $1 billion budget is spent on salaries and benefits.

And the salaries grow too quickly, the website claims, because collective bargaining practices force salaries up in Toronto and across the province.

“In our view, the broken arbitration system does not allow for the Police Boards to freely negotiate new collective agreements. In fact, it does just the opposite,” the website reads.

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The Police Services Board claims practices like “leap frogging” and “replication” where an agreement settled elsewhere in the province is applied to the agreement in Toronto.

“The looming threat of arbitration means that a police service board is forced to settle ‘leap frog’ agreements that replicate monetary concessions made by another police services board in the province,” the police board’s website reads.

Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack did not return calls from Global News regarding this story Friday.

McCormack told the Toronto Sun he is “disappointed” the police services board is negotiating in public.

“We’re obviously disappointed that they are choosing to collective bargain in a public manner,” McCormack told the newspaper.

“We prefer to sit at the table and bargain in the appropriate manner.”

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Outgoing Police Chief Bill Blair suggested during a police services board meeting Thursday the police budget should be frozen and the number of officers reduced by 43, according to the Toronto Star.

Blair is asking the board to approve $957.76 million for the 2015 net operating budget.

Mayor-elect John Tory called the request a “a good start” while speaking to reporters on Friday.

“I think the zero per cent increase request is a good start and I’m sure there’s more work to be done on that and every aspect of the budget,” he said, adding the police need to be “mindful” of the city’s pocketbook.