{"id":23478,"date":"2011-11-07T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=23478"},"modified":"2011-11-07T00:10:12","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T04:10:12","slug":"lorinc-don-bosco-daycare-and-a-little-more-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/11\/07\/lorinc-don-bosco-daycare-and-a-little-more-math\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Don Bosco, daycare and a little more math for Rob Ford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Whatever else one thinks about Mayor Rob Ford and his tumultuous tenure on the second floor of City Hall, there\u2019s little question that he is genuinely dedicated to his high school football team, which lost a big game on Friday.<\/p>\n

Yes, Ford\u2019s minions have made sure to flag the media when there\u2019s a game \u2013 his infamously foreshortened post-election interview with \u201cAs It Happens\u201d <\/a>took place while he was out on the gridiron \u2013 so the public can see him in action.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t doubt his commitment, nor his empathy for his players. The location of the emotional headwaters is anybody\u2019s guess. Everyone knows he\u2019s a big football fan, and maybe he\u2019s also working out some old baggage with his coaching and the foundation. Whatever the motive, it\u2019s not about image burnishing.<\/p>\n

What struck me Friday, however, was the yawning gap between Ford-the-coach and Ford-the-hatchet man when the\u00a0 subject of the city\u2019s subsidized daycare spaces came up for debate<\/a> at the community development and recreation committee, chaired by Councillor Giorgio \u201cThe Thumb\u201d Mammolitti.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mammolitti has been meeting in secret with Ford\u2019s daycare special ops taskforce. It appears they\u2019ve come up with the genius tactic of playing chicken with Queen\u2019s Park over the $27 million in one-time capital funding and an annual $27 million for the city\u2019s 24,000 subsidized spaces. If the Liberals don\u2019t dig deep, the message seems to be, all those kids (read: cannon fodder) will be shit out of luck.<\/p>\n

Indeed, some parents will likely go onto welfare because of the daycare trap well known to low-income families. For some working parents with very poorly paid jobs, the cost of unsubsidized daycare is so high that it makes more financial sense for them to quit and go on welfare \u2014 the costs of which are partly borne by Toronto property taxpayers but are being gradually uploaded to the province.<\/p>\n

So the question looms: is it better to subsidize daycare or to force working Toronto parents onto welfare so they can pay their rent and the grocery bills?<\/p>\n

Ideally, the province should cover daycare subsidies, which is a social program and thus best financed from a progressive tax base. But rather than negotiating with the province, Mammolitti and Ford are trying a bit of blackmail. And like many local politicians before them, they\u2019ll soon discover that the City of Toronto is rarely in a position to dictate terms when it comes to provincial relations. The mayor managed it once or twice, but I\u2019m guessing he\u2019s used up his allotment.<\/p>\n

Which brings me back to Don Bosco. Some of Ford\u2019s players, and other teens supported by his foundation, come from disadvantaged families, and may well have been enrolled in subsidized city daycare spaces as children so their parents could work. But in this, as in so many other things, Ford seems incapable of making the leap from the particular to the general.<\/p>\n

True, he\u2019s helping his group; in fact, some adults may even be motivated by his example, and follow suit. Yet his good angels have little sway with his political demons \u2014 the ones who shout in his ear that subsidized daycare is (pick one) a nice-to-have; a redoubt for lefty parents; or a source of gravy for the public sector unions.<\/p>\n

The Math<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote a story for The Globe and Mail this wee<\/a>k that showed how Ford has moved some expenses from the mayor\u2019s budget to council\u2019s general budget, thus undermining his claim about running a much leaner operation than David Miller.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office was not pleased, and said my analysis was incorrect.<\/p>\n

Okay, then, let\u2019s do the math.<\/p>\n

Ford states that he\u2019s \u201csaved\u201d taxpayers $700,000 by reducing the mayor\u2019s office budget from $2.7 million to $2 million, the amount council budgeted for 2011. This claim reminds me of those retailers that hike their prices before a sale so they can entice gullible consumers with claims of giant discounts.<\/p>\n

Here are the facts:<\/p>\n

In 2010, Miller budgeted $2.56 million for his office budget, and ultimately spent about $2.4 million, as the 2011 budget documents indicate<\/a> [PDF]. (The $2.4 million comes from a third quarter variance report and is the latest available figure.)<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re doing apples to apples, then Ford could reasonably claim he cut the mayor\u2019s office budget by $500,000. The actual savings to taxpayers will be the difference between what Ford ultimately spends in 2011 and what Miller spent in 2010, allowing for the fact that Ford & Co. quietly transferred some mayor\u2019s office expenses (e.g., telecom\/telephone service, insurance reserves) to the general council budget last January, and thus they wouldn\u2019t represent a savings to taxpayers.<\/p>\n

So where did that $2.7 million number come from? Turns out it\u2019s a straw man, disguised as a staff projection. During the 2010 budget process, the clerk\u2019s office, which administers council, estimated the 2011 mayor\u2019s office budget would be $2.8 million; that number was subsequently re-stated as $2.715 million.<\/p>\n

Problem is, city council never approved that figure. It is merely a target produced by staff and was not subject to political scrutiny \u2013 you know, the sort of thing Ford did when he declared he was going to run his office for $2 million. Needless to add, Miller was in no position to dictate the quantum of the 2011 mayor\u2019s office budget because, well, he wasn\u2019t the mayor any more.<\/p>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever else one thinks about Mayor Rob Ford and his tumultuous tenure on the second floor of City Hall, there\u2019s little question that he is genuinely dedicated to his high school football team, which lost a big game on Friday. Yes, Ford\u2019s minions have made sure to flag the media when there\u2019s a game \u2013Continue reading “LORINC: Don Bosco, daycare and a little more math for Rob Ford”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5835,408,425,18775,18620,18776,18774,426,416,22085,316,227,18773,314,19,391],"class_list":["post-23478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-clerk","tag-councillor","tag-david-miller","tag-don-bosco","tag-ford-co","tag-giorgio","tag-insurance-reserves","tag-mayor","tag-pdf","tag-politics","tag-queen","tag-rob-ford","tag-telecomtelephone-service","tag-the-globe-and-mail","tag-toronto","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Don Bosco, daycare and a little more math for Rob Ford - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/11\/07\/lorinc-don-bosco-daycare-and-a-little-more-math\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Don Bosco, daycare and a little more math for Rob Ford - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whatever else one thinks about Mayor Rob Ford and his tumultuous tenure on the second floor of City Hall, there\u2019s little question that he is genuinely dedicated to his high school football team, which lost a big game on Friday. 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