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Sunday afternoon, on 10 minutes’ notice, I had the chance to take on Toronto Sun<\/a> columnist Sue-Ann Levy<\/a> at a Toronto Party<\/a>-hosted panel discussion. The topic was the state of Toronto City Hall. Levy arrived brandishing her column published that morning, which outlined $440.9 million in cuts and revenue to get Toronto part way out of its $575 million budget hole.<\/p>\n With only the aforementioned 10 minutes’ notice, I had to keep my comments at a higher level than Sue-Ann so, line by line, here is my response to Swinging Her Axe<\/a>:<\/p>\n THE BIG-TICKET CATEGORY <\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Reduce city’s average fair wage rate of $42.50\/hr. on $1 billion of contracted-out services by $5 to bring it more in line with province and other GTA cities. Proposing a 12% reduction in the fair wage rate is a very ideological decision. Such a cut is part of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mentality and it isn’t one I’m interested in. I would rather pay a decent wage to workers, allowing them to take care of themselves and their families (if they have one) so that they aren’t dependant on more costly social services. That being said, there isn’t anything economically incorrect about this decision, it just isn’t one that I think is in line with the values of the city (once you get past the knee-jerk reaction of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153everyone should be paid less but me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n Added October 19, 1PM:<\/strong> I have been informed by two well-placed people that Levy’s calculation is entirely distorted. The $1 billion figure is inclusive of\u00a0materials\u00a0and other expenses. Materials alone are 2\/3 of the cost for a typical\u00a0project. Apparently City staff have estimated the real savings of a $5\/hour cut to the fair wage rate is in the range of $5-10 million.<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n 2. Use $90 million of $245-million Toronto Hydro note, which comes due Dec. 31 and will be allocated to mayor’s Climate Change Initiatives. Using one-time funding from reserves to balance the operating budget is a practice Levy has assailed the Miller Administration for in the past. Now she’s proposing it herself. Even more concerning is that within less than three years, that pot of money will be entirely spent and Levy has no long-term plan to replace it.<\/p>\n On top of that, investing in retrofitting (which is what much of the climate change capital plan involves), by the City’s estimation, will have paid for itself in seven years. After that, the City will be realizing savings that can help bolster its operating budget.<\/p>\n Oh, and outside the City Hall bubble, there’s that little climate crisis thing going on (inside the bubble there’s so much hot air, no one notices climate change.)<\/p>\n 3. Eliminate 2% wage hikes for merit and OT over and above the 3.25% negotiated (2006) increase contained in the $3.8-billion wage budget for last year. Overtime is an interesting issue given Levy’s past insistence on hiring freezes. When the City freezes hiring or uses gapping (delaying hiring), the work must still be done. Although hiring freezes and gapping on a smaller scale can save money, you can be confident that at least some overtime will have to be worked to make up for fewer bodies. If you eliminate overtime there’s no telling how much more will fall through the bureaucratic cracks. This doesn’t appear to have been considered by Levy.<\/p>\n I’ll take the elimination of merit pay, wage freeze and benefits cut as one in number five.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4. Implement a wage freeze for city’s non-unionized staff (about 20% of the total head count). Merit pay, wage increases at the rate of inflation and benefits are all part of what keep good City employees working for us. Merit pay and wage increases are standard for non-unionized workers regardless of which sector they work in, while the level of benefits received by non-union workers at the City is common in the public sector. The consequence of instituting such measures could well be that the City’s best employees leave for provincial, federal or private sector jobs. If the best leave then the level of effectiveness and efficiency will surely plummet and we could be in a worse position than we are now. It takes a great deal of talent to run a $7.8 billion operation. This, too, doesn’t appear to have been taken into consideration by Levy.<\/p>\n 6. Provincial upload committed by Premier in election. Technically, before the writ was dropped, the McGuinty government made this official policy so it’s not just a commitment, it’s happening. And, although I’m not especially optimistic, there’s a chance we may get more money from Queen’s Park once the Provincial-Municipal Review reports out in the later part of Q1 2008.<\/p>\n 7. Raise property taxes 6% to spread the pain (3% more than expected). This is a shocking, though welcome, admission by Levy. For the longest time she has droned on and on about how awful it is for the City to build in property tax increases that are above the CPI rate of inflation to the budget. Well, folks, even with some dim suggestions for savings, Levy hasn’t just built in a tax increase to her budget, she’s built in the largest tax increase in the history of post-amalgamation Toronto.<\/p>\n 8. New assessment on 10,000 condo units coming on stream in 2008. Levy should know that the revenue from new condo units in 2008 is already figured into the projected budget gap so scratch this off her list of savings.<\/p>\n 9. Cancel $54-million capital purchase of garbage carts and bins and use bag tags (at 15 cents each) instead. Savings would be on debt financed at 5%. I’m not sure how $2.7 million in a $7.8 billion budget constitutes a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153big-ticket item\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I’ll bite. When the cart program was proposed to Council it was done so after a great deal of research into how other cities have implemented user-pay garbage systems. Simply put: for a city the size of Toronto, bag tags would result in a great deal of illegal dumping (costly to prevent and enforce related laws) and would not have the same level of impact on reducing the amount of garbage entering the waste stream (reduction saves money). Further, with the user-pay system, the program will be paid for within itself so I’m not even convinced that the $2.7 million number is even a pressure on the 2008 budget.<\/p>\n TOTAL BIG-TICKET ITEMS: $419.4 million<\/strong><\/p>\n If I total up all the items put forward by Sue-Ann Levy that are, in my estimation, reasonable cuts, I come to a grand total of $0. Levy’s proposed revenues come to $71 million.<\/p>\n THE CHICKEN FEED CATEGORY <\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Reduce councillor office budgets by $23,100 to $30,000. This suggestion is off the wall. Each councillor has approximately 55,0000 constituents. At $53,100, their office budget is less than $1 per person they serve. This money enables them to respond to constituent requests for service, receive legislative support, communicate with constituents and support the activities of an executive officer for a $7.8 billion organization. Sure some councillors don’t spend their money in a manner that respects taxpayers and\/or don’t provide the level of service to their constituents and\/or the city that should be expected of a councillor but if you look at the ones who are widely recognized as hardworking councillors that contribute a great deal to their community and City Hall, they’re the ones who spend the most.<\/p>\n 2. Roll back wage hikes given to councillors and the mayor in 2007 (over standard 1.9% COLA increase). SAVINGS: $284,740<\/strong><\/p>\n The people of Toronto had their say on this issue after a very transparent process (notwithstanding Moscoe’s first attempt.) They decided that members of Toronto City Council should be paid at the 75th percentile of the municipal politician pay scale.<\/p>\n 3. Cut council’s free food and coffee. If councillors were constantly running down to the cafeteria or the second floor to get a coffee it wouldn’t be particularly helpful or efficient. Meals are only ordered when Council is working through a meal time and that’s a reasonable expense. If you cancel it, councillors will still claim the expense but it will probably be for more than what it costs now and the Clerk’s Office will have to add capacity to administer the additional expense claims.<\/p>\n 4. Cut council conference and travel budget. Conferences and travel are essential. If our elected officials are confined to a bubble, new ideas will be a thing of the past. I’d also venture a guess that the ideas picked up at conferences produce more efficiency than $50,000 per year (it’s such a small number, even a slight change to accounting practices could achieve that.)<\/p>\n 5. Cut council grants budget by 10%. If people were outraged over losing community centres, they’ll be even more outraged when the organizations that provide the programming to their children or elderly parents stop receiving the funding they need. Further, the City estimates that for every dollar it provides in grants, organizations are able to get another three dollars from other levels of government and\/or the private\/not-for-profit sector.<\/p>\n 6. Cut Tenant Defence fund grants by 10%. This is just mean. Tenants are generally the poorest of the poor in Toronto, many are one pay cheque away from losing the roof over their head. To remove the subsidy that allows them to fight negligent landlords is cruel. But it could also have a big impact on communities that have higher rates of tenants. If tenants can’t take on slumlords then the problems with a building won’t surface until public health shuts it down.<\/p>\n 7. Cut culture and special events budgets by 10%. Most people understand the value of culture for the sake of culture. However, for those less enlightened, I’ll put it in economic terms. With the amount of money that events like Nuit Blanche, Pride and Caribana bring into Toronto’s economy, we can’t afford to not fund culture.<\/p>\n 8. Cut plant watering service in city buildings. This is part of running a large operation. Everything has a cost. Deal with it.<\/p>\n 9. Eliminate Toronto Water radio ad campaign Re: Summer lawn watering. I’ve never heard the ads and don’t know if there is research to demonstrate that they have an effect that justifies $210,000. For a change, I’ll give Levy the benefit of the doubt on this one.<\/p>\n 10. Eliminate door-to-door waste and water newsletters. It probably is time to put these things online and ditch door-to-door so, sure, let’s cut it. But even moving it online will take a staff to produce the content so you couldn’t count on saving the full $665,000.<\/p>\n 11. Cancel lobbyist registry. The lobbyist registry will also go a long way toward protecting taxpayers from another MFP scandal. Even if that level of impropriety were to only happen once every 60 years, a $1 million annual budget would be entirely justified.<\/p>\n 12. Cut Clean and Beautiful City program (including secretariat). I’m not quite sure what Levy is including in here but Clean & Beautiful is essentially all of the services (street cleaning, litter picking, flower planting, etc.) that work toward a clean and beautiful city coming together to realize efficiencies with a little more money added for beautification. The secretariat ensures that the work is being done in a coordinated manner so there isn’t unnecessary overlap. But, that said, I wouldn’t shed a tear if the flowers in the median on University Avenue were cut.<\/p>\n 13. Recoup half the cost ($54.50) of the 18,860 free monthly Metropasses given to TTC employees, retirees, councillors and assorted others. I’m not sure how this provision is positioned in the TTC collective agreement so that will probably tell us whether or not this can even be considered. That said, the $11 million figure can’t be accurate. The assumption that all employees, retirees and councillors would continue to hold a Metropass isn’t a reasonable one. As well, generally speaking, I’m not opposed to giving members of council access to City\u00a0services that the public pays user fees for because I think it’s\u00a0part of a decision-maker’s job to ensure those services are working properly and to observe a normal experience.<\/p>\n TOTAL CHICKEN FEED: $21.5 million<\/strong><\/p>\n From my perspective, only $950,000 in the chickenfeed section is reasonable (includes cutting the radio ad, door-to-door newsletters and flower planting on boulevards.)<\/p>\n GRAND TOTAL: $440.9 million <\/strong><\/p>\n Even if the $440.9 million could be saved, Levy doesn’t offer up any solution to get us the last $135 million. But that’s irrelevant because my grand total works out to $71.95 million.<\/p>\n Yawn.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy Optimus Prime.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nSAVINGS: $123 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nREVENUE FIX: $90 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $86 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $18.9 million
\n5. Cut non-unionized benefits by 4% (from 25%).
\nSAVINGS: $7.8 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nREVENUE FIX: $38 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nREVENUE FIX: $33 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nREVENUE FIX: $20 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $2.7 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $1 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $80,000<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $50,000<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $4.1 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $6,700<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $2.1 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $77,000<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $210,000<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $665,000<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $400,000<\/strong>
\nThis suggestion is offensive. If anything, the lobbyist registry needs to be brought up to the $1 million budget originally requested by the Lobbyist Registrar so she can bring some much needed transparency to lobbying at City Hall. If Levy wanted to suggest something intelligent here, she might have considered combining the Integrity Commissioner and the Lobbyist Registrar and realize some savings there. In fact, I wouldn’t even oppose axing the Integrity Commissioner entirely because, so far, all he’s done is provide weak rulings (as a result of weak rules) on important topics like sandbox etiquette.<\/p>\n
\nSAVINGS: $1.6 million<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nREVENUE FIX: $11 million<\/strong><\/p>\n