Do we have too many cops?
The Toronto Police Service boasts more cops per capita than any other big-city force in the country save Montreal’s, but fewer per 100,000 population than cities of comparable size in the U.S.
The police deployment for 2011 is 30 officers fewer than the agreed-upon target of 5,617 – even fewer now, after Tuesday’s decision not to replace the 233 set to retire this year.
Police union president Mike McCormack isn’t happy about the decision to freeze hiring. He thinks there’s room for the 100 more cops the mayor promised during the election. Clearly, he also wants his members to be the highest-paid in the land when contract talks conclude sometime this year.
Can more be done to trim overtime costs? The jury’s still out on that one. The budget request for overtime, $43.1 million in 2011, is unchanged from last year’s. In 2010, the force, after years of pressure to alter expensive shift patterns, introduced a compressed workweek scheduling system in four divisions to cut down on overtime. The pilot project is being taken force-wide this year.
Cost-cutting isn’t as simple as sending out patrol cars with one copper instead of two, as policing reformer John Sewell suggested to the Police Services Board last week. There are safety issues to consider.
It’s easy to miss the big picture when debating cuts to the police budget. In-cruiser cameras, for example, would seem an easy target, and half a million bucks could be saved by eliminating them. But important issues of police accountability and oversight are involved. We want to know how our officers are behaving out there, don’t we?
The mayor has himself suggested contracting out cleaning services for police stations. Except there’s the not so small matter of security clearance for any new personnel hired to do that work.
The city auditor is holding one piece of the cost-saving puzzle. That office is expected to report soon on its review of police paid duty, whereby off-duty cops are paid for odd jobs like supervising construction sites for Toronto Hydro and the TTC. Let’s see where that takes us.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
