City Manager Shirley Hoy announced a roster of cuts to City services that are needed to balance the City’s 2008 budget. The cuts reduce 2007 operating budget expenditures by $34.4 million for the balance of 2007 and $83 million in 2008.
The announcement comes almost three weeks after City Council’s vote to defer its decision on whether to implement the taxes that would be required to balance the City’s 2008 operating budget without significant cuts to City services. By delaying the vote, the City’s Chief Financial Officer said that the City would lose out on approximately $80-100 million in revenue as a result of postponing implementation of the taxes from January to March.
Going into 2008, the City has a $575 million budget shortfall that it is legally obligated to eliminate before the budget is adopted. Because Hoy made $34 million in cuts instead of $100 million in 2007 alone, it seems that an assumption is being made that Council will adopt the tax measures in October.
Cuts will affect Parks, Forestry & Recreation, Municipal Licensing and Standards, Solid Waste Management, Transportation, and Public Health, among other parts of the City.
The most significant cuts include closing all community centers on Mondays, laying off seasonal litter pickers two weeks early, reducing street cleaning, canceling road repairs, deferring green roof projects, cancelling public health programs for new parents and people trying to quit smoking, reducing seasonal leaf pick-up from two times annually to one and postponing outdoor ice rink openings to January. Many other services will take longer to receive than they do now. To see the City’s press release on the cuts, click here.
Additionally, the Toronto Transit Commission will save $6 million by deferring service to accomodate ridership growth and the police will cut $3 million through attrition and reduced conference and travel expenditures. As previously announced, the Toronto Public Library has cut Sunday service in all branches except those in priority neighbourhoods and cancelled the purchase of 14,000 materials, among other cuts.
Hoy suggested that up to 3,000 workers could be impacted by the cuts through reduced hours and earlier than expected layoffs. The announcement made for a teary-eyed president of CUPE Local 416, Brian Cochran. The union boss with a tough guy image got choked up in a media scrum as he expressed compassion for the families that will have trouble putting food on the table after layoffs are complete. Though in his next breath, Cochran made it clear that the union will fight for job security for seasonal workers in its next contract negotiation since, according to Cochran, it has become clear to the union that those workers are their most vulnerable members.
War of words
After the formal press conference concluded, Councillor Adam Vaughan got into a war of words (video courtesy CityTV) with Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong in the middle of a media scrum. Vaughan took offense to Minnan-Wong misleading the media and the public with facts that, according to Vaughan, he knows are half-truths or lies. The argument lasted more than five minutes and included Vaughan questioning Minnan-Wong’s work ethic. Meanwhile, Minnan-Wong slagged Vaughan for dividing his time between his duties as councillor with his CityTV show (a rather amusing comeback for a councillor who runs an legal practice (see item 11-25) on the side.)
When that argument began to cool Councillor Howard Moscoe jumped in to ask Minnan-Wong if he would vote to cut the popular snow shoveling service in North York. Moscoe didn’t receive a response. Then it was Councillor Glen De Baeremaeker’s turn to jump in, accusing Minnan-Wong of using politics his of deception to force the closure of libraries and community centers.
Photo courtesy Steve’o
39 comments
The one thing I find funny about Minnan-Wong is that he goes and tries to slag Vaughan about City TV when it is City-TV who seems to only go to him about any city issue. He wouldn’t be anyone without City-TV always going to him when an issue comes up.
“The most significant cuts include closing all community centers on Mondays”
This is the problem with Toronto’s city council, quick ‘fixes’ and no creativity in how they do it.
Why not get the same savings and minimize disruption by staggering the closures across the week, or even just Monday through Thursday. By having geographically close community centers close on different days residents will at least have some options and council has an opportunity to minimize the inconvenience.
Adam (author): your article wasn’t very neutral, in the sense that the pro-tax councillor “questions” while the anti-tax councillor “slags”.
I can’t beleive council is using the concept of “forgone revenue”. This tax scheme was never really presented to the public, and only briefly examined in council. How long has this been under Miller’s hat?
Adam (author): your article wasn’t very neutral
I don’t think Spacing has ever claimed to be neutral. They’re pretty up front about what they believe in.
Beerad, if you’ve read my comments and articles in the past, you’ll know that I’m not neutral in this debate. I support these taxes 100% and see Councillor Minnan-Wong and his cohorts in a very similar light as Councillor Vaughan described them this afternoon. Although this article reads more like a straight news story, it’s only in that form because I don’t have a lot of time to write at the moment and felt it was important to convey the information on a priority basis.
When I have time this evening or tomorrow I’ll provide more analysis on the cuts. In the mean time, you can see my detailed opinion on the taxes and the position the deferral put Toronto in as a comment in the thread Matt Blackett started on the issue on July 16.
Nothing like an old school council dogfight, eh? But I ask you, fellow bloggers, when will someone really throw down??
I’ve been fairly critical of the Mayor on issues of leadership leading up to, and following, the tax votes and I still consider him to be far too diplomatic. What I would really like is for the Mayor, or anyone, to throw down their hat and take each deferring councillor to task for every single cut proposed today. Or better yet, offer the deferrers a chance to balance the budget. Maybe Minnon-Wong has a really great idea that no one has thought of yet. Perhaps we can bottle his hot air and sell it to Goodyear for their blimp. (SNAP!!) It is in town this week, you know…
Where is the staunch opposition from our buddies on the left. And I’m not talking about opposition, I’m talking about major head-bashing. This is the kind of thing that Howard Moscoe used to master, but recently he’s been fairly reticent. Maybe he’s wishing he was still running this TTC…maybe not…
It’s always easy for the righties to take the louder position on any matter. Their brains are smaller and as a result they don’t have much bandwidth to spend on functions like vocal moderation when just speaking is such a challenge. (Now that’s a dig!!) Anyway, real “ham and eggers” (Another dig!!) like Minnon-Wong are always going to have something stupid to say about their vision of the city; a vision governed by their desire to ensure the city has a sufficient amount of things to complain about. (This is starting to get mean!) Who on our side will be there to slap them in the back of the head? Maybe someone is doing this now, if they are I would encourage them to slap harder, with an open palm, because I can’t hear the smacking sound.
The person that will do that is the person I would vote for…and vote for often. And you’d have to, because lefties are expected to be smart not smart and tough. So if you got a real lefty bulldog on council he probably wouldn’t last long. But then again, Howard did…
I see they will close public golf courses one week early – how much subsidy do the courses require annually?
If all this is news to Minnan-Wong: the numbers with respect to taxes paid by Torontonians to other levels of government, the discrepancies in monies flowing back to the city, the numbers with respect to under funding for downloaded services, the impact of the budget deficit resulting from the deferral vote 16/07/07 and so on, well, he hasn’t been reading his Council Meeting Reports has he? Or even the newspapers apparently.
Denzil doesn’t bother with getting his facts in hand. He believes citizenship is the realm of the angry, the begrudging, the uninformed. He’s ignorant about the subject matter of his never ending complaints, about the consequences of his decisions on the ordinary working person in this city. He doesn’t think it matters if his ignorance shows. He runs for office, he gets elected, but he doesn’t have the capacity to be a statesperson, a leader because he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing.
He certainly appears to believe his colleagues are conniving liars. On top of those faults he’s annoying – he whines. He’s worse than Michael Del Grande that way.
Hmmm .. no mention of cycling budget/infrastructure/past surpluses. But then again with the committee MIA (hellooo Councillor Heaps) decisions affecting cyclists are made without consultation – like the recent decision to make the Boulevard Club driveway section of MGT a no-cycling zone by installing physical barriers which will make cycling through this area all but impossible.*
So what of past surpluses? I can see Oates and Ford wringing their hands over the possibility of raiding those funds and securing them for things of more personal interest – things that require the combustion of ever greater quantities of fossil fuel.
Is it just me or do some of these cuts seem particularly pound foolish. The health cuts on the FACE of them suggest they will incur greater future costs. I see similar stupidity in cancelling road maintenance items that will become safety concerns. Again, there are hygiene issues with street cleaning. Do we really want to potentially increase our susceptibility to an infectious outbreak by playing fast here? Gunk deposited on roadways is especially threatening to cyclists as their tires pick it up and fling it onto them. Global climate change has repeatedly been demonstrated to be upon us yet we are willing to defer transit spending and green roof projects which can contribute to gaining some control over this global threat?
*Stay tuned for part 2 where this practice is repeated adjacent to the Palais Royale. MGT will become our next “no cycling” “cyclepath”. Much in the way the Harbour Castle succeeded in defeating bike lanes on the Queens Quay we will have the Boulevard Club killing cycling on the western beaches.
That’s a good question, Mark. I was always under the impression that the golf courses had fees that ensured full cost recovery. Though it’s possible that in the last couple of weeks of the season business slows. But then I’d still wonder why they hadn’t cut that week before today.
Geoffrey: Capital budget items weren’t touched in the cuts. The City’s position is that its capital expenditures are well in hand (evidenced by the credit rating agencies’ ratings) and that the problem is maintaining a sustainable operating budget without appropriate revenue streams.
And though I do agree with your general point that the services cut serve an important purpose, I don’t think they’re more “foolish” than cutting anything else. If anything, I think that by cutting these services we’re seeing proof that there isn’t an excessive amount of fat left to cut — we’re beginning to saw through the bone.
I think that by cutting these services we’re seeing proof that there isn’t an excessive amount of fat left to cut
What are you talking about? Rob Ford gets to golf for free, Karen Stintz can just waltz into the Toronto Zoo any time she feels like it… there’s got to be at least a billion dollars of perks there.
At least, that’s the only reason I can come up with for why, whenever I ask someone to actually identify all this fat, they sputter for a few seconds and then say that council gets too many perks.
Well, maybe someday someone will find something expensive yet useless, and boy won’t we all look the fool then. (It might be the day after the people who gripe about overpaid TTC drivers cough up the five-digit number they think the TTC should be paying per annum.)
A question: why are capital dollars so exempt from being cut or recycled into operating dollars? Isn’t that a somewhat artificial distinction?
So why can’t we say ‘”Forget the Spadina subway, we need this money to do a, b, c to t” and that’s that.
It’s so perverse that we’re prepared to build subways to sprawl and highways in the core while potentially cutting off so many things that make city living good.
Hmmmm, I didn’t see any cuts to Corporate Services, i.e. departments that only serve the corporation, not the public. You would think that the human resources department COULD have some of its budget cut back since the city isn’t in a hiring position anymore. Also, they could have done what most private companies do, cut off all the consultants and non-essential contractors and fire or package-out the expensive mid-level management……but, no, they went after only services that are most visible to the public. How long must we circle the drain until someone rises up and takes this stuff seriously???
Is there a reason we are repeating what American cities did to themselves a generation ago? Is Toronto too stupid to survive? Mark my words, this gets fixed by the next Mayor, or Toronto is Detroit.
Well, a mayor cannot do it; a premier will not do it; that leaves a PM.
Hamish, capital dollars are exempt at this point for a few reasons. First, although the powers of the City Manager seem a little bit vague to me after the cuts today, she isn’t allowed to cut entire items from the budget because by approving the 2007 budget Council directed staff to complete all included capital projects. Second, the vast majority of projects have had contracts tendered so there aren’t significant cost savings to be had in the current year. Third, there is a very small amount of money for new capital projects, most are for “state of good repair.” If those projects continue to be deferred then you end up with safety hazards and increasing the cost of making the necessary repairs down the line, likely meaning that you’re behind in basic upkeep for decades. Fourth, the Subway to Nowhere doesn’t impact this year’s budget.
Clide, City administration was not spared from the axe that fell today. Quoting directly from the City’s press release:
“Administrative Divisions – As a result of the hiring freeze and other cost containment measures, service provided in administrative areas of the City which directly support day-to-day operations will be reduced. Reduced service will be in effect at parking tag counters, tax and water counters, and vendors will experience delays in the payment of invoices. In addition, services that support front line staff, such as Information Technology, will be reduced resulting in longer system down times and impact public service.
Budget reductions will also be attained through a hiring freeze in all City divisions, with the exception of those positions that are deemed essential under legislated requirements, needed for health and safety reasons or are 100 per cent funded by other orders of government or external agencies. A position by position review of the City’s current 677 full time vacancies was completed and it has been determined that 376 jobs will not be filled. All staffing requirements must first be approved directly by the City Manager or Deputy City Managers.
Unless mandatory, staff training, development, education and attendance at conferences has been cancelled. A significant amount of advertising and promotional materials has also been cancelled. Required purchases of new vehicles and other equipment have been cancelled. In addition, all discretionary travel has also been cancelled. This has an impact on public education activities and key programs and services, as well as the City’s ability to attract economic investment and tourists from abroad.”
one thing is for sure mayor miller is in big trouble.I’m sure if john tory becomes the next premier this administration will be toast,and these budget cuts will seem tame.It just seems sad that this significant issue was not part of the last election.Or should I say that dave miller and associates tried very hard to keep it under wraps.Of course the media co-operated and now the taxpayer suffers.
PS it seems I am required to inform everybody that I was candidate in the last election in ward 19 trinity-spadina.
George > Tory has said he will fix Toronto’s funding crisis. He is not the neo-con of Harris (tho he has many of those cohorts still around) and is presenting himself as the incarnation of Bill Davis. Tory wouldn’t trash Toronto the same way the PC government did, I assume, because it wouldn’t be in his interest to so: he is running in a riding here, probably the only one they will win in TO (though, Wynne will be hard to beat — Tory will be travelling the province and she will stay here and knock on every door). If the PCs want to get into power they will need to win seats here. And they won’t since most voters think the provincial ship has be righted, which also means that Tory won’t be the next premier. It will take an election screw-up to change the current government standing (though a minority isn’t out of the question — the wildcard is how many NDP seats are gained, if any, from the Liberals).
While this funding crisis is bad in the short-term (this year and 2008), I don’t think its permanent or long lasting: either the city starts taxing land transfers and vehicle registration or some other revenue stream, or the province starts to upload some services (and/or a combo of both). This means the city’s head is just above water, no doubt, but we’re nowhere near the example of Detroit as mentioned above. I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic — just cutting thru some of the hyperbole that is coming out of both sides of the debate/council (but I do wish I was there to see the dust-up).
I don’t comprehend why Miller and Hoy did not undertake this sort of review before advancing the new tax proposals. There is a need to show some leadership and responsibility. Ashton was right in so far as many have lost respect for Miller and his fiscal approach to running the city. There are a lot of skeptics amongst us. There is a lack of trust and people are concerned with how the additional revenues will be spent and thus the pressure on the elected representatives to defer (don’t let them have it until there is a concerted effort to get the house in order).
I do chuckle about the parks cut backs. To be a summer student in parks is being a step shy of heaven. Recall last summer the boys were making about $24/hr, sleeping no less than 2 hours after painting 2 fire hydrants, it’s all in a days work (unless you get the day off as a lieu day or because it’s your birthday).
They have some work to do yet.
I do chuckle about the parks cut backs. To be a summer student in parks is being a step shy of heaven. Recall last summer the boys were making about $24/hr, sleeping no less than 2 hours after painting 2 fire hydrants, it’s all in a days work (unless you get the day off as a lieu day or because it’s your birthday).
One day, instead of making a stupid comment (“OMG THEY SLEPT FOR HOURS AFTER PAINTING TWO FIRE HYDRANTS!!!!!111!!one”) one of these critics will point out a cut that has actual merit. Then the world will explode.
sorry, I should have said there is merit in reviewing carefully the number of employees in all departments. in particular I would suggest that the manning in parks and rec be analyzed as there is now and has been for some years significant inefficiencies. sorry, if I wasn’t clear before. it is true, stupid comment or not.
the footage of the Minnan-Wong/Vaughan dustup can be viewed on the citynews ‘raw’ video area.
it’s very interesting to watch, and surprisingly disappointing. Vaughan actually comes off as quite rude — he won’t let Minnan-Wong speak. Although he’s holding a citytv mike as a member of the media doing the scrum, he keeps interrupting to interject his own pitch. If you’re a Vaughan partisan it’s kind of funny (he clearly bullies Minnan-Wong out of the scrum), but if you’re a citizen seeing the two for the first time you’d be startled by the lack of manners shown.
I don’t comprehend why Miller and Hoy did not undertake this sort of review before advancing the new tax proposals.
I’d hazard a guess they thought that perhaps after half a decade of warnings that the city of Toronto faces a fiscal crisis, including a report from the Conference Board of Toronto that the city of Toronto faces a fiscal crisis, and widespread agreement from the editorial boards of every paper in the city that the city of Toronto faces a fiscal crisis, Council might think that the city of Toronto faces a fiscal crisis and act accordingly.
Of course, now we see that was way too optimistic, and Miller and Hoy should have had a plan for what to do if Council thought that there really was no crisis at all and David Miller had simply enlisted thousands of people as accomplices in some sort of elaborate practical joke on Denzil Minnan-Wong.
Toronto has never taken its financial situation seriously, and this is just another example of how Council refuses to deal with it in a productive way. But, this is typical of Canada, pass the buck, blame someone else, and talk about the good old days (which were 30 years ago.) Honestly, the only way out is for the city to go absolutely bankrupt, loose its credit rating, remove all Councilors and management and have the city run by an appointed administrator. The status quo is never going to work.
I was there standing beside howard moscoe,I commented to him that it was out of character that he didn’t jump in.Seconds later there he was yelling that citizens of north york will be upset when their driveways aren’t cleared.I told him he had the choice of an emmy or an oscar for his performance.But it felt like a high school bylly match and vaughan was really in such a panic that he tried to be a city tv reporter and forgot that he was a councillor.One thing is for sure the bunch don’t have a clue what to do.I commented to one of the councillors that a comptroller should be installed to oversee the budget just like new york city.There was a pause then a grunt then a low sigh,”I think you are right”….
oh well just another day with “the kids in the hall”
oh yeah it was Councillor Glen De Baeremaeker
Those who claim the proposed taxes and at least some of the cuts are simply not paying attention.
The report on available sources of new revenue came out early in 2007 and it didn’t take a genius to see which option produced the most revenue for the city with the minimum fuss of setting a tax collection bureaucracy.
Where I do fault the Mayor and the TTC is for keeping the proposed transit cuts under wraps — the report containing the details was dated March 2007 and it was prepared as part of the main budget work to show what the impact of a large cut to TTC funding would be. This should have been thumped on every Councillor’s desk before the tax debate along with a copy of the Ridership Growth Strategy and a short note saying “Pick One”.
Councillors, especially those in the burbs, are fast to complain about poor transit service and the perception that we downtowners live in some sort of transit heaven, but they’re the same ones who claim to support their constituents calls for no taxes. Maybe the timetables on bus stops should be replaced with signs saying “this service cut brought to you by Councillor [insert name here]” and suitable contact info.
The problem with the polarized environment we now face is that it will be very difficult for individual Councillors to change sides for the next vote. Rather than sober second thought, they will be seen as traitors to the cause.
Smokin’. I wish every Torontonian could see this footage.
I love these guys who took a massive dick like Denzil to task. This isn’t “childish” — this is publicly outing one of the worst councilors this city has. Bloody lightweight.
If the guy was a hard worker, who genuinely seemed to care about the city, but maybe his politics weren’t where I’d like them to be, i could still respect him. But Denzil M-W is an embarrassment.
Steve – there are all sorts of “easy to collect” taxes – doesn’t make them right ones. A portion of PST or better still income tax would be the easiest of them all, if Ontario would just give it to us – which would mean all that PST Caribana and Taste of the Danforth generates would flow through to Toronto. But that would require Ontario to make choices that didn’t benefit the Queens Park bunch alone.
“I commented to one of the councillors that a comptroller should be installed to oversee the budget just like new york city.There was a pause then a grunt then a low sigh,â€ÂI think you are rightâ€Â….”
You’d be interested to note that although the City of Toronto does not have a Comptroller by that name, the Internal Audit office provides that feature. Finance & Administration is the Division that provides the City with “…services to the Internal Services Cluster, supporting its day-to-day operations of delivering quality financial and corporate services to the City, Council and the Public. This is achieved through effective financial and budget services, communications, information technology and project management.” For more information, please see: http://www.toronto.ca/divisions/divisions_info.htm#admin and http://www.toronto.ca/city_manager/about_cm.htm#1
unfortunately it is a body that makes “suggestions”, and if a councillor or mayor wishes to spend even though it is ill advised they are free to do so.In fact the city auditor faced this situation with georgio mamolitti when the auditor said the city couldn’t pay for a video camera he wished to purchase.Georgio signed the “waiver ” and our money was spent ,game over.The same happened with the MFP fiasco.It just goes on and on. WE need a comptroller now before it becomes a real disaster in this city!
George, if you want to ensure that councillors are following the rules that are in place (like Mammoliti should have) then the answer isn’t an unaccountable comptroller. The answer is putting real teeth into existing rules.
And MFP happened in an entirely different way than you infer. In fact, the way MFP happened suggests that we shouldn’t have a single bureaucrat in charge of the City’s purse strings. Why? Two words: Wanda Liczyk.
George – from what I understand, you cannot simply turn over the spending of public dollars solely to unelected public servants. From wikipedia: “A comptroller or controller is a person who supervises cash flow in an organization. A Comptroller is typically a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes certifies expenditures. A Controller is an accountant in a corporation who performs similar functions.” I know that where I work, the Controller and their department does not enforce compliance. They provide advice on what rules to adhere to in purchasing and contracts. Finance in governments the size of the City of Toronto is a complicated matter, and although it may not appear to be so, public servants act as an important bulwark against partisan agendas and increasingly populist spending platforms. However, they are not elected by citizens and control over public dollars cannot be solely left in their domain. Even in private institutions, Controllers and CFO’s are not unaccountable. They must provide financial reports to auditors and Boards of Directors, who are accountable to their shareholders.
As for the budget cuts, I agree with the poster who commented that the City has been making public the severity of the cash crunch facing it for several years now. I like the “brief note: Pick One” idea, but I don’t think our elected officials can plead ignorance on this matter. They have been briefed, or should have been paying attention to the council minutes [and even the media on the issue coming from the Mayor’s office], about the necessity of finding other revenue streams. The provincial and federal levels of government have made it clear, by now, that they will not upload programs nor share tax revenues. I think that given their ability to get elected, they have the ability to parse the materials they receive and should have known it was a pick one situation.
both good comments and I appreciate both of you taking the time to try and understand the problem.New York was in a similar situation and depend on their elected comptroller to keep finaces in check. In fact it has worked extemely well.So don’t listen to me but google new yorks comptroller and see if you think it would work here . I’m trying very hard to make sure that the citizens of this city,province and country stop getting a raw deal from their elected officials and bring a solution that everybody will feel is fair.Doing nothing or throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve anything.
PS actually in the MFP situation every councillor voted for the deal.They later recanted by saying that each councillor didn’t know what it was all about.In fact joe pantalone knew what the deal was all about but when discussions came up in council he decided to keep quiet about his knowledge, especially about the persons involved. In the end wanda was pegged to take the blame.
George, your lies are incredible and seemingly never ending. If you have even a shred of evidence to back up your claim that Pantalone had some knowledge of “what the deal was all about,” I challenge you to post it here and to go to the police. Otherwise, stop slandering a person who has dedicated his life to public service and is widely hailed as a local hero in his community.
The only part of your post that is factual is that councillors voted to accept the MFP deal. But, with the exception of Tom Jakobek, councillors didn’t know that the deal was anything other than a routine item to approve.
Your elected comptroller idea sounds like Toronto would again be treated as a child under the supervision of its provincial parents. This would be useless. The City of Toronto has shown more restraint than the provincial or federal governments in its spending patterns in the last three years (4% spending increase at City Hall versus 7% and 8% at Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill respectively.) The problem is a fiscal imbalance that makes it impossible for the City to succeed.
incredible “a routine deal” that cost the taxpayers millions!So how many other “routine deals” are there? That was what Minnan Wong was trying to find out in the details of the cost curtailment announcement that still lacks details or any clarity.
But please stop defending joe pantalone, he is the most powerful politician in “the hall”.Maybe you should ask joe why he is so adamant about approving the front street extension.I wonder if any person would benefit from that construction.I wonder who owns the land that the extension is to be built on. I know adam vaughan started to ask those questions of joe then went silent as those before him have done on this issue.
But imagine a comptroller that just makes sure that politicians are held accountable for their actions and that taxpayers are assured that their tax trust is protected.We have to put a limit on that credit card that all politicians enjoy.An election isn’t good enough to hold these politicians accountable.I can’t imagine any taxpayer who would not agree with a comptroller being put in place.I know there isn’t one politician that would want to see this happen.But the time has come and the people are fed up.Imagine the citizens of new york city enjoy the benefit of a comptroller.
Interesting. Why don’t we look beyond the ends of our noses for a second. Most of what is talked about here is planning…let’s look at how planning fares with the two services that account for a real good portion of spending in the City…at least from an operating perspective. In 2006, Fire had an operating budget of about $300M for 3,000 positions (or, $100,000 per position). The cops had a budget of $796M for 7,600 positions (or, $105,000 per position). Planning, on the other hand, had
a comparatively measely budget of $28M for 350 positions (or, $80,000 per position).
I guess an NDP-union controlled caucus would never ever ask for cuts to fire or the cops….I don’t care if you think they’re “heroes†or not (whatever the hell that means).
By the way, do you know that about 40% of all firefighters are off on some sort of “disability” at any one time. Mel tried to take them on about this little known “issue†but couldn’t stomach the fight….nor can anyone else.
I agree with George a little. I don’t think the progressives on Council have done enough to convince voters that all the money is being managed properly and that there are no savings to be found. I only hear two arguments; 1) There is tonnes of waste at City Hall, we don’t need new taxes, and 2) There is no waste at City Hall, we need new taxes.
I’m sure the truth lies in the middle, and it’s a shame that the debate has become so polarised. Where is the sane voice saying “There surely is some waste at City Hall. Let’s find it, cut it, and then get some new taxes so we can build an even better city”. The fact that efficiency and investment have become mutually exclusive during this debate, is the real problem.
By not talking about efficiency (except for a few vague lines about reviews and audits) the left has handed the right-wingers a platform to stand on.