Pressure Mounts to Replace Cops with Civilians
The governments of Canada and the United States are in tough talks with its respective public employees, including teachers and cops. The pressure is on to cut pay and benefits—a position supported by the editorial board of a lot of local newspapers.
Christina Blizzard, writing for the Toronto Sun, came out strong against the police and made a call for laying off cops and hiring more lower paid civilians to do the work. It’s important that police union officials counter these attacks with op-ed pieces, television appearances, press conferences, and any other things you can think of.
Blizzard writes: “Having hiked salaries to the stratosphere over the past decade, the government now faces the unenviable task of telling public servants to hold the line. Police are one of the biggest costs for municipal taxpayers—and the costs keep growing. The OPP has seen a wage increase of 13.55% over four years, with a huge 8.55% last year. That’s caused grief for taxpayers across the province.
“A three-year OPP constable makes $92,000 a year—with a healthy pension.The 2014 wage increase alone will add $25 million to property taxes.
“Costs are mirrored in most cities and municipalities because of a “leapfrog” clause in the OPP contract that says they have to be the highest paid force in the province.
“Small municipalities are hardest hit because they don’t have a large commercial and industrial tax base to rely on to pay for policing.
One solution is to contract out non-core police duties to security firms, says Stephan Cretier, CEO of Garda International, a Montreal-based private security firm.
“Why do we need cops making $100,000 a year taking routine reports, acting as receptionists at police stations and doing the work of administrative assistants?
“The real question is do we need a $100,000-a-year policeman to give parking tickets?” asks Cretier.
He says lower-paid, but well-trained security staff can perform duties that are not essential policing work. They could respond to low-priority burglar alarms, take fingerprints, analyze photo radar images, do background checks, and so on.”
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