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The Toronto Police Services Board has unanimously approved the force’s request for a $27 million, or a 2.76 per cent increase over the 2015 net approved budget.

The increase, if approved by city council, will push the service’s 2016 operating budget to more than $1 billion and was primarily needed to cover the wage settlement included in the most recent collective agreement.

Earlier this year, the board and the Toronto Police Association signed a four-year contract providing a 2.75 wage hike this year, 1.95 per cent next year, 1.9 per cent in 2017 and 1.75 in 2018.

Almost 90 per cent of the budget goes to salaries and benefits.

Mayor John Tory said he, his fellow board members and Chief Mark Saunders are committed to finding ways to constrain future police spending in the future. A $200,000 KPMG report with cost-cutting recommendations is on next month’s board agenda, he said.

“We can’t continue to see significant increases in the police budget indefinitely, so we’re at work on that,” Tory told reporters after the board’s monthly meeting at police headquarters.

Tory said the collective agreement allows for discussions on shift scheduling and the requirement there be two officers in a car after dark, which are embedded in the police contract. Both would be contentious issues over which the TPA has in the past vigorously opposed changes.

A 2011 Ernst & Young efficiency report found that $35 million could be cut from the police budget with a simple shift schedule change. Right now, there are as many officers on duty at 4 a.m. as there are at 7 p.m. “It’s a crazy way to spend money,” said former Toronto mayor John Sewell, who heads a police watchdog group.

Sewell was representing himself when he told the board Thursday the proposed increase is $65 million more than the city wanted to spend next year on the service.

The city had asked for a police budget one per cent less than the 2015 budget, or $942 million.

“I think you should be really upfront about...