The Toronto Police Service is asking the city to approve a $1.002 billion operating budget in 2017, two million dollars less than this year’s record budget and halting a more-than-decade-long upward trend. Mayor John Tory, a member of the civilian police oversight board, called it a “huge accomplishment” because the service found $47.4 million in spending reductions, almost half from a hiring freeze. “This is the first police budget in the last eleven …that actually shows a reduction in the police service budget,” Tory said Thursday after the board approved the budget request. The TPS budget request, however, fell short of council’s requested 2.6 per cent reduction, which would mean another $24 million would need to be cut. “I think we have to look at the glass as being half full instead of otherwise,” because the trendline is going down, Tory responded.

Source: thestar October 20, 2016 23:25 UTC