I’m busy writing up a round of Freedom of Information requests for various government agencies, but I stumbled on a few recent Transit Police responses that might be of interest to some of you.

Transit Police have now paid out more than $1 million in Sunday premiums over the past three years. This is the goofy provision that pays transit cops 25% extra for working Sundays. A recent FOI reports that in 2012, the Sunday premium cost taxpayers $339,660. In 2011, it costs $347,429, and in 2010, $333,174. Waste!

The Transit Police also released (after a request via FOI) the costs of their service dog program (this was the one that made international headlines when we revealed an explosive had been left on an Air Canada jetliner due to a training exercise gone wrong). The program cost nearly $65,000 in year 1, plus wages and benefits for the officers themselves (the program included two dogs). By 2012, the Transit Police were down to one dog for a cost of $7,886.

The Transit Police were also asked how many officers under the age of 35 had left the force over the past five years, and why. The response: 21, with 20 of them leaving due to work variety, career development, or specialty training desires. Or, to use the description of the Edmonton police officer who reviewed the Transit Police model for their city: “When you put fully trained police officers in a transit environment, and restrict their work to transit properties, they realize fairly quickly that transit crime and disorder work is not that interesting . . . [resulting] in members looking outside of their designated work areas to expand their policing experience.”