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[Update: Councillor Carroll has issued a clarification that appears at the bottom of this post]<\/em><\/p>\n Councillor Shelley Carroll<\/a> has been the representative for Ward 33 Don Valley East since 2003. Councillor Carroll got her political start as a parent activist in North York fighting the Mike Harris cuts to education. In 2000, Councillor Carroll beat off an incumbent trustee to win election on her first try. By 2002, the savvy Liberal was leader of the Need to Succeed Since arriving at City Hall, the mother of two and grandmother of one has been a rising star. As a rookie, Councillor Carroll aimed to get a well-rounded experience. That led her to the key post of Works Committee chairperson, a member of the Budget Committee and Toronto Film Board, and chairperson of the youth section of the Mayor’s Roundtable on Children, Youth and Education.<\/p>\n A consistently strong performer, Councillor Carroll was tapped by Mayor David Miller to chair the Budget Committee following her re-election in 2006.<\/p>\n Councillor Carroll made time to speak with me in Council Chambers yesterday evening about the recently released<\/a> 2008 operating budget.<\/p>\n Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler: What is the significance of this budget in the history of the amalgamated City of Toronto?<\/span><\/p>\n Shelley Carroll: What’s significant is the degree to which we have control over the new revenues in the budget. (The funds) are ours to spend on municipal concerns.<\/p>\n The new budget process that we’ve been trying to move to is also significant. Which is we’ve had negotiations with the province and now we’re bringing forward a real and viable budget.<\/p>\n For Spacing we’ve got a reader who can grasp this: We’ve been caught between wanting a perfect model of consultation — the Puerto Alegre model of complete participatory budgeting — while not having a budget that is completely within our control (because of provincially mandated programs). So we’ve pretended to have consultation to hear about what to spend on but while we’re doing that we’re trying to close the gap (between revenues and expenditures) back at City Hall through internal means.<\/p>\n As we went forward, the Listening to Toronto exercise became disingenuous. I didn’t think that was suitable. So we used a different model where we say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Look, this is a very tight budget so let’s show you the finished product. This is how we closed the gap and here’s the tax increase, all rolled up into one. Now tell us if we got it right — we’d like to give you everything under the sky but we can’t so tell us if we struck the right balance.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Given our work, I think this is a more genuine dialogue to go to councillors and the community with.<\/p>\n ACF: Which new spending initiatives are you most proud of within this budget?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: One of the smallest investments in there. It doesn’t matter if you live in the suburbs or down at the waterfront or anywhere in between. It’s only half a million dollars. It’s 12 full-time equivalents in the planning department. That’s the beginning of what I hope is a phased investment in neighbourhood planning and urban design. These FTEs will go to doing the heritage studies and urban design work that Council asked for. Next we need to back them up with more expertise in our legal department and other supporting areas.<\/p>\n This is something that people are asking for and with targeted investment like this we can really start to achieve our goals. If we don’t invest in things like urban planning, that’s the kind of thing that has a ripple effect decade after decade. Without it we aren’t able to properly absorb population growth and provide growing neighbourhoods with the services they need.<\/p>\n The other area (I’m proud of) is economic development. This is actually quite timely. Not only because we’ve introduced the Prosperity Agenda but also because we know the work that needs to be done in economic development has to be done in the short-term. We’ve seen a hint of it already — we’re headed for an economic downturn and we’ve been so underfunded that we’ve got nothing to go on if we’re going to keep businesses here and attract new ones.<\/p>\n Those are two good areas to start and I think with what’s in (the budget) we’re doing that.<\/p>\n But I’m also proud that we’re getting to a better (budget approval) process. We’re giving people time to dialogue with their councillor on what is a viable proposal.<\/p>\n ACF: You’ve called this budget “ridiculously modest.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: I’m actually scratching my head on that one. I read that in the paper this morning but I absolutely do not remember saying (ridiculously). I don’t know where he got it from. I’ve said that the budget is very modest. It is. What I’m saying is that (the budget has) very modest investments if you look at new spending next to the entire $8 billion budget.<\/p>\n We’ve saved $116 million in this budget. The new spending makes up $53 million and of that only $12 million is off the property tax. So I don’t remember using the world ridiculously but that is pretty darned modest that only $12 million (of increased spending) is drawn directly out of property tax.<\/p>\n If the province ever comes through with a real upload then we might be able to sit down with the community and say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, here’s some new money. Where should we go with it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n ACF: Can you speak to the process of restraining spending in the City budget?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: How it happens is that as soon as we pass a budget, Budget Committee will sit down with staff and ask them to look at whether we have the ability to set a (spending increase) target of zero per cent for the next year. The answer has been No in the last couple of years because we’ve cut and we’ve cut and we’ve cut and now there’s nothing left to save. So after that we look at how much we can restrain the costs. Shirley (Hoy) and Joe (Pennechetti) then take all the projects and vet them without councillors present to try to find all the efficiencies they can. Then (Hoy and Pennechetti) give them to us and we boil it down to what our wants are and what our needs are. After we whittle those down further. And this year we also started by saying to every department \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is what you did for cost containment, can you keep these?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n The reason that it’s been hard to keep departments to zero per cent increases is a number of things. This will be the first year we’re on a new fuel contract so unlike before we’re feeling the skyrocketing fuel prices for the first time. We’ve got labour contracts and we also just finished settling all the legal disputes over wage harmonization with CUPE 79 and 416 that affects many workers. So that’s why it’s hard to realistically ask for zero. But if you take out the wages, we try with some departments for a negative so everything but wages comes in at less than last year. But not everyone can do that without compromising the services residents want. SC: Well I haven’t said this to anyone yet but we’re talking about the Spacing reader here: If I wanted to be glib, 3.75% is the residential, 1.25% for the commercial. What does that work out to? Two point five percent, which is inflation. So there’s a ratio issue here but, in fact, this is an inflationary increase. So if we don’t see \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in line\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a qualifier and we’re married to 2.4% as inflation then, in the purest of terms, this actually is an inflation increase.<\/p>\n But the Mayor does make that promise in his campaign and he can continue to do that but the role of the Budget Committee is to query every department of the City on whether they’ve made the greatest number of efficiencies they can while still living up to their bargaining unit contract, lived up to Council’s priorities to the ability that they can and lived up to the Mayor’s mandate to the ability they can. If that’s been done and the Budget Committee is convinced that we have all the savings and efficiencies we can get then we hand it over to the Mayor and tell him that we need a certain property tax increase to make it work. Then it’s up to him to say okay or turn it back since (the Budget Committee) is a creature of (the) Executive Committee.<\/p>\n ACF: What would be the consequence of limiting the residential property tax increase to the CPI inflation rate of 2.4%?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: I think residents know what we would have to sacrifice because they’ve seen it. It was cost containment. And every cost that we contained that was a cut to a direct service the community went wild. While we offer lots of different services, most are already offered at the economy model because we’ve been so strapped for cash for so long. So no one already thinks they have a particularly generous amount of service with their two leaf pick-ups per year or once every other week garbage collection.<\/p>\n So if people want us to go down to 2% then sacrificing these services would be the cost. But we heard again and again and again over the summer — in places like Etobicoke, where some councillors think that everyone wants everything cut — \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I will pay for service, Mr. Mayor, but I want service; I want better service.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n So what’s in this budget? The first rollout of operational staff for 3-1-1 and 3-1-1 is the only way we’re going to improve service (in the current fiscal framework).<\/p>\n ACF: Why is it important to spend money on a new stingray exhibit for the Toronto Zoo in a “modest” budget?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: When staff said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here are some things you might want to highlight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The new stingray touch tank? Really?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But the reason they wanted to highlight that was because it goes to show that if you make a little investment, they know from the business plan and from all the new attractions they’ve done before, that you get a rollout revenue of $1 million a year for two or three years just from that small investment. It’s easy to promote; heck it’s already being promoted through this budget. It only costs $930,000 and we’ll get back $1 million in year one.<\/p>\n ACF: If the province were to upload all $750 million of the services that have been downloaded on the City, what would your top three priorities be for that money?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: (Long pause) You know what? These guys (councillors) will have shopping lists of their own but you know what I’d do? I’d have a year where we’re not allowed to spend any new money (on new services). What we’re going to do is put a lot of it into reserves and we’re going to take a little chunk of it and have people come in and do an operational audit on those areas that we’re delivering on the ground services and look at where we are. Did we get rushed into things with the private sector that maybe aren’t what we wanted to do? And who’s doing what right now? And have we been keeping certain departments together with chewing gum and duct tape? Just tell us what the consequences have been from operating in a climate of such fiscal restraint. Spend a year doing that. Get a few third party people in here to do it with us before we start just throwing money in the streets. That’s my fear: if the whole upload came at once that we’d just start tossing money in the street.<\/p>\n So if we put it into a reserve — interest bearing — then we could get the audit and prepare ourselves for targeted investment. Let’s get it right, let’s not make a bigger mess as a result of getting the money.<\/p>\n ACF: This year is the first year that the City has received its annual one-time provincial funding in advance of the launch of the budget process. Later this year, the most recent Who Does What provincial-municipal review will report out. How do you expect these two developments to impact future budgets and budget processes?<\/span><\/p>\n SC: There’s a few things. Even if the province had a sudden turn of nastiness, they’re on the hook now for the Ontario Drugs and Ontario Disability Support Program. That amount doubles next year to $76 million — $80 million with increases for inflation. So we get that. We also have the revenue tools for next year too so that’s more like $250 million next year instead of the $175 we got this year. So there’s a certain sum of money we already know is coming to us.<\/p>\n What they brought to us in terms of the (one-time) transit funding this year, if they allow us to keep it in operating, that would get us back to the Bill Davis formula of 50%. Now we’re just waiting for them to say that this is how they will address transit every year. And I’d be very surprised if they couldn’t. I’d like to have a meeting with the auditor if they can’t because now we’ve been given that money for three solid years in a row so if they suddenly don’t have it, I’d like their auditor to tell me where it went. So let’s make it permanent funding and stop playing whether this “will Dad give us our allowance this week” game.<\/p>\n <\/span>I really hope that Spacing readers will hit the budget web site<\/a> and use that as a resource and for consultation. I think this really goes towards being more honest with people since it’s showing the whole package and not just telling people we have control over our budget when we don’t really.<\/p>\n And also, I want to tell people to get in touch with their councillor. People all over town should be asking for a meeting with their councillor to talk about the budget. All the councillors have been given a communication package to help them talk to their residents so if they want to have a meeting they have all the graphics for a kick-ass PowerPoint. Really, talk to your councillor, get 16 people together, let (the councillor) hear what you want and have the discussion about what to do if we get that big upload.<\/p>\n Clarification [Updated: Wednesday, January 30, 2008, 2:40PM]<\/strong><\/p>\n Upon reviewing\u00a0her comments in this\u00a0post, Councillor Carroll has issued a clarification\u00a0of her statement regarding the legitimacy of the Listening to Toronto consultations.<\/p>\n While the City’s struggle with its finances under downloading had begun with amalgamation, we had good reason to embark on the ‘Listening to Toronto’ eight stop consultation tour in 2004. New leadership in the Mayor’s office and 14 new Councillors generated a need to invest time in major community consultation in an open format as part of a process to establish new Council priorities. Shelley Carroll Photographs courtesy mlostracco<\/a> and City of Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/councillors\/photos\/scarrol.jpg\")
bloc of Toronto District School Board trustees, serving as co-chair of the Board.<\/p>\n
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ACF: This budget has been criticized for proposing a residential property tax increase of 3.75%, which is above the CPI rate of inflation and, according to some, beyond what the Mayor promised in his 2006 election platform. How do you respond to that?<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nIn the second year, the question of whether or not ‘Listening to Toronto’ felt like a pretend consultation came directly from participants in the process – our communities. Council had established a set of 9 priorities to guide the budget process and policy development. But we were still, as we are today, on the hook for many provincially downloaded social services and legislative responsibilities. As a result, participants commented at the second round of consultations that the city had so little flexibility that the point of a comprehensive consultation on budgeting was not clear.
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\nThis year’s budget website and the budget binders available for review at City Hall represent a proposal for a viable budget ready for balance. In my view, these are the most meaningful tools for consultation given the magnitude of the financial constraint the city still faces. So much dialogue has taken place community-wide that I believe Toronto residents can give excellent feedback on a detailed proposal for a balanced budget. Further, I believe that community members should begin a dialogue on what new form of civic engagement they want to demand of their City council should our improved financial structure materialize in time for the Budget Process for 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nCity Councillor – Ward 33
\nDon Valley East
\n100 Queen Street West
\n2nd Floor – Suite A14
\nToronto, ON M5H 2N2
\n(416) 392-4038
\n(416) 392-4101 (fax)
\n<\/em>councillor_carroll@toronto.ca<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n