Toronto Police Services board say they can meet Rob Ford’s budget goal
Posted January 11, 2011 1:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO, Ont. – There is optimism at City Hall Tuesday, as members of the board which oversees Canada’s largest police force said they will be able to meet Mayor Rob Ford’s demand to slash the budget.
Following Monday’s meeting between Police Chief Bill Blair and Ford, the board got to work.
“There was no push back from the Chief,” said councillor Michael Thompson.
The Toronto Police board is one of the few agencies requesting a three per cent budget increase.
“We’ve looked at everything. We’ve looked at travel, we’ve looked at conferences – areas where we can cut, we’ve looked at,” Thompson told 680News, adding that they are currently targeting trips, conferences and how police stations are maintained.
“I’m still hopeful that we could get closer to zero, but based on what we have found today, I’m not optimistic that we will get to zero.”
Thompson doesn’t know where they will end up, “but we’ll get closer to zero than three per cent, and at least we’ll be somewhere in between.” He did not say whether or not he thinks Ford would be pleased.
He also called Bill Blair thoughtful, saying “he gets it in that we need to provide policing at a lower cost.”
Police have been assured that the payrolls will not be touched.
Another meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday at 4 p.m.
On Monday, Ford threatened to fire agency bosses if they didn’t reduce their budgets by at least five per cent.
