Who actually decides — the map most residents don't have
The Police Services Board prepares the budget and controls how money is spent. Regional Council approves only the overall amount — it cannot line-item. And if Council approves less than the Board considers adequate, the Board can refer the dispute to binding adjudication and may win the money anyway. Police budgets are the only municipal line with this backstop — a feature of Ontario policing statutes for generations, carried into the current Act. It is province-wide, not a Durham anomaly.
- "Vote out council" reaches only the approval-of-total step — real, but partial.
- Board meetings are where the budget is actually built — and boards hear public delegations: any resident can register to speak, typically for five minutes, on any agenda item (verify registration mechanics on the Board's current site).
- Board composition is the deep lever: council appointees, community appointees, provincial appointees — chosen by bodies residents elect or petition.
- The plan's own review milestone — 2027 — is the scheduled moment the $1.1B trajectory is formally revisited. Organizing aims at that date. The October 2026 municipal election chooses the councils that appoint and approve.
The question bank — what to ask, on the record
Money already spent against accountability
- The oversight investigation's report states the service and Board caused "an unjustified significant expenditure of taxpayer funds in resisting and obstructing a lawful investigation" — with reported legal costs of roughly $2 million and a court-ordered $65,000 payable to the OCPC, both ultimately taxpayer-funded. Will the Board table the full, itemized legal spend on that investigation before asking residents for the increase?
- Will the Board publish the completed oversight report, or formally request its publication, before the 2027 review? (Three of its 33 recommendations remain fully withheld even in the released copy.)
- What has the service spent, per year since 2020, appealing members' WSIB findings — including PTSD findings — and what is the policy basis?
Value for the money requested
- Clearance rates by offence category for each of the last five years — and how will $1.1B change them, by how much, measured how?
- Response times by priority level and municipality, current and projected.
- How many of the 670+ new positions are sworn front-line, civilian, and administrative — and what does each cohort cost fully loaded at year ten?
- Per-capita policing cost today versus each GTA comparator, and at plan end. Fact-check for the record: the plan is $1.1B over ten years; Toronto's budget is larger than that every single year — comparisons must match periods.
Transparency as a condition
- Will the Board adopt, as a condition of the plan, annual public reporting of: HRTO matters and outcomes; LECA complaint volumes and dispositions; legal spend by category (including external counsel on accountability matters); and settlement totals?
- Will budget-adjudication filings, if any dispute is referred, be published?
The metrics demand — the kit's core ask
How to delegate
Register before the deadline (typically days ahead — verify); write your five minutes out — 600 words maximum; one topic; end on a question the chair must respond to or take away; file the written version so it enters the public record regardless of the clock. Bring the numbers above — the record is sourced, which is the entire advantage.
What this kit is not
Not anti-police: several questions above concern the service fighting its own members' injury claims. Not a tax revolt: it is a demand that the largest and least-controlled municipal line item justify itself like every other one. Every factual claim herein is sourced on the linked pages; corrections are published.