Cost of policing tops residents’ list as biggest budget concern for west end communities

Kimberly Spice —

Councillors Joe Cressy and Mike Layton combined efforts to explain the 2016 budget process and hear comments from the constituents in their ridings at CSI-Annex, 720 Bathurst St., on Jan. 25.
Presenting the actual numbers was Josie Lavita, the city’s executive director of financial planning. Approximately 40 residents attended the meeting.

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Cressy told the crowd about the different revenue streams available to the city such as road tolls, commercial parking tax and tax on entertainment such as venues, alcohol and cigarettes—but these would not be part of this budget and the city would have to decide to use them even for the next budget.

“The issue is the amount of revenue these would generate,” Cressy commented. “It’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars, when we’re talking about billions of dollars. Things like a sales tax, things like an income tax; we don’t have the capacity as a city to levy those. We would need permission to do that or we would need a tax sharing arrangement with the provincial or federal government. If you ask me that’s what we need.”

One resident was concerned about paid duty officers and the impact on the budget when used at various sites—like intersections, construction sites, some parking lots and high traffic venues—asking if auxiliary or less expensive people can be used.
Layton thought there was information coming to councillors about that very issue, but added if there is not, this should be investigated so see how much savings using alternative methods would be for the city.

Cressy ceded that the police budget is a concern for many residents.
“One things we’ve heard a lot when we had deputations at budget committee and many people coming out to speak and I’ve heard it a lot on the streets and in my community has been around the police budget,” Cressy contributed.

“We saw the increase in terms of where the growth is and its emergency services, 90 percent of our growth in the budget is related to emergency services, primarily police. But we have a ten billion dollar operating budget and a police budget of more than a billion dollars. Their increase this year they’ve asked for is 2.7 percent, a 27 million dollar increase this year—whereas other departments, social development and finance and administration, they deal with issues related to social services, they’ve come in at .4 percent. The real question to me, the big elephant in the room, is the police budget.”

Follow developments and find further information about the 2016 budget at
toronto.ca/budget2016