Hold our feet to the fire and you might just get burned, that's the message from the Police Services Board to London city council.
At its monthly meeting Thursday, the budget chief of the Police Services Board laid out how demanding more cuts could come at a significant cost.
The board says under the Police Services Act, the police department has to maintain a certain level of service and cutting service could cost taxpayers even more.
"This is not about fear-mongering, this is about creating a very clear understanding of the consequences that are about to be made at the council table," says Paul Paolatto, budget chair.
Paolatto adds that by almost every benchmark, London is one of the most cost efficient forces in the province.
But Chief Brad Duncan says that has come as the result of significant belt tightening - and the belt can't be tightened any more.
"We've carved away at the infrastructure in order to support the human resources costs. We're at a point now where we can't do that any further. We've put training at risk, equipment at risk, we've put the lights...you know all the things you need to run a business," says Duncan.
The board says any demand for further cuts to the requested 3.3 per cent increase will have to come at the cost of personnel and that will almost certainly mean a hearing before the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC).
"The risk that we actually run here, and this should not be lost, is that once we bring this forward to the OCPC, there is a risk that they could actually say you're underserviced still, and actually compel us to provide more service, which would cost even more to the municipality," says Paolatto.
The board is again appealing to council to stop focusing on this budget and get on side lobbying other municipalities to adopt coordinated bargaining.
It would be a made-in-London solution to escalating police costs caused by arbitrated labour settlements.
"By not creating precedent agreements out there, there's no leapfrog ability and arbitrators are going to have to start awarding based on a communities ability to afford the service," says Paolatto.
