The police budget is one of Toronto's largest expenses. Here's what you need to know about it

Few financial issues in Toronto have received as much attention in recent years as the amount of money the city spends on policing.

Ever since the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, calls to reduce the more than $1 billion in funding for the Toronto Police Service (TPS) have become a central part of the city's annual budget debate. 

The last city council, led by Mayor John Tory, rejected those calls twice, instead voting to maintain or increase the amount of money going to TPS despite efforts by some councillors to force a reduction. 

With Toronto voters heading to the polls on Oct. 24, the issue is on the minds of many. And with the city facing an $857- million budget gap, police spending will continue to be central to that debate.

For a number of years, spending on police has consistently been the single largest expense in the city's annual operating budget, although this year it was supplanted by the Toronto Transit Commission.

At $1.1 billion, the police budget makes up 7.4 per cent of the city's $15 billion total operating budget for 2022, or 23.7 per cent of the portion that's directly funded by property taxes. It increased $24.8 million, or 2.3 per cent, compared to 2021.

In other Canadian cities, police spending is taking up 11 per cent of the total operating budget in Montreal in 2022, 21 per cent in Vancouver, 17.5 per cent in Calgary, 9.3 per cent in Ottawa and around 18 per cent in Hamilton.

In its 2022 budget submission, TPS noted that the police budget has decreased as a percentage of the part of the city budget that's funded by taxpayer dollars over the past 10 years, shrinking from 26 per cent in 2011 to 23 per cent in 2021, and that this year's increase was less than the 2021 inflation rate of 4.4 per cent.

Of the money budgeted for Toronto police operations in 2022, 90 per cent is going to salaries, benefits, overtime and other pay-related expenses for the service's approximately 4,988 uniform officers and 2,400 civilian staff members, according to the TPS 2022 budget request.

TPS said the budget increase would allow the service to focus, among other things, on community policing, the Vision Zero road safety program, mental health training and the prevention and investigation of hate crimes.

The force said it would also re-introduce an investigative team to address serious crime trends and strengthen relationships with communities by continuing to implement police reform.

While TPS provided a line-by-line breakdown of its budget online, critics say it doesn't include enough detail for the public to evaluate how well the money is being spent.

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, told CBC the public has a right to know more about how police deploy resources.

"How much of their time and our money is going to drug law enforcement, is going to policing guns and gangs versus is going to community policing efforts?" he said.