By the numbers: 2015 Toronto police budget

The police chief is recommending that the Toronto police services board approve a $957.7-million operating budget for his police force in 2015.

Bill Blair, whose second term ends next April, is calling for no increases to the budget from 2014.

He’s also asking the board approve a reduction of 43 uniformed officers to 5,462, but an addition of 56 civilian staff members to 2,218 people. That means the force would have 7,680 officers and civilian staff members.

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the proposed budget:

• The force’s operating budget has climbed by 43 per cent to $957.7 million in 2014 from $669.7 million in 2004.
• On average the budget has grown 3.65 per cent each year since 2004.
• About $241 million or 84 per cent of the total budget increase of $288 million from 2004-2014 is attributable to salary and benefit increases.
• About $47 million or 16 per cent is related to non-collective agreement-related items.
• The remaining $40 million or 14 per cent is relate to caretaking/utilities, information systems maintenance contracts, gasoline, telephones, uniforms and vehicle/communication equipment parts.
• The force hired 180 recruits between April and August and it is currently planning for an unspecified number of December recruits.
• In July, the force’s police operations centre launched. It has oversight of policing operations across the city on a 24/7 basis. Its function is to redeploy primary response officers across divisional borders based on call volumes and wait times, intelligence monitoring and crime analysis.
• Also in July the force’s transit patrol functions were centralized to a location near the subway system, which is located in a non-city-owned location.
• Major crime in Toronto has increased only one per cent for the period ended Sept. 30 compared to the same period a year earlier.

Click here to view an interactive chart and hover your cursor over it to see major crime stats for 2012-2014 courtesy of Toronto police.

Click here for the proposed 2015 budget, which will be considered at the board’s Dec. 18 meeting.