{"id":5246,"date":"2009-07-06T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=5246"},"modified":"2009-07-06T10:41:11","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T14:41:11","slug":"john-lorinc-throwing-out-the-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/07\/06\/john-lorinc-throwing-out-the-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: Throwing out the numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here’s a loaded question: Is the strike costing the City of Toronto money, or is it generating a financial windfall for the Corporation?<\/p>\n

City officials won’t touch that one with a barge pole. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We’ll be calculating the costs after the labour dispute ends,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d spokesperson Rob Andrusevich said Friday.<\/p>\n

No wonder: the strike’s ongoing net cost (or surplus) represents a radioactive shard of information for those on either side of the bargaining table, as well as those on either end of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

If the city’s is saving money, there’s less incentive for management to settle. Conversely, if the costs associated with operating core services are piling up, so to speak, that fact alone should create internal pressure to cut a deal.<\/p>\n

As for Torontonians, we’d be in a better position to judge which side is blowing smoke if we knew how the strike looked from the vantage point of the bean counters working for city manager Joe Pennachetti. Notwithstanding the deflection quote above, I’d be shocked if they weren’t keeping a running balance. That said, the calculation is not straightforward. Using 2009 operating budget data<\/a> [PDF], I estimate the city spends $1.3 million on child services per week. Parks, forestry and recreation, another department that’s been mostly on idle, gobbles up $4.5 million.<\/p>\n

But when the strike passes the 14-day mark this week, the city won’t have saved $11.6 million on those two service categories (the total for two weeks) because of additional strike related costs: managers clocking overtime, fees paid for security guards, and so on.<\/p>\n

The strike also means foregone fees for attractions (e.g., Centre Island). In 2002, the city saw a significant drop in attendance and event revenue during the strike, a 2004 budget document notes<\/a> [PDF].<\/p>\n

The garbage story offers another twist. According to budget documents<\/a> [PDF], the City spends $880,000 a day to operate solid waste management services, or about $12.3 million as of Day 14. If the garbage collectors aren’t collecting their paycheques and if their trucks aren’t consuming gas, there will be savings. But as in 2002, there will also be significant clean-up costs afterwards, not to mention expenses relating to securing and spraying temporary dumps.<\/p>\n

Now here’s the twist: with the new garbage levy, solid waste management is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153user-fee supported,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as the budget documents like to say. Estimated revenues for 2009: $239.5 million, or approximately $660,000 a day.<\/p>\n

By my tally, city taxpayers will have forked over $9.2 million in said fees as of Day 14, without receiving any service in return. Will council move to refund a pro rata portion of those fees to homeowners? Interesting to ponder.<\/p>\n

Councillor Karen Stintz told me that when the 2002 strike ended and the city added up the net cost, it turned out to be a wash\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6as luck would have it!<\/p>\n

A politically neutral answer from the bureaucracy was certainly expedient. But budget officials are not disinterested players, and I’d say the job of determining the net cost this time around should fall to an independent third party, like the Auditor General. That way, Torontonians will have a much clearer sense of the strike’s bottom line if and when this kind of dispute happens again.<\/p>\n

Other garbage notes:<\/strong> Implicit in The Star’s expose about flaws in the green bin program<\/a> is a question: are there environmentally friendly alternatives to composting organics? Exhibit A: The City of San Jose last month announced a plan to build a $20-million facility<\/a> that uses a German \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dry fermentation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d digestion process to convert organic household waste into marketable bio-gas and fertilizer pellets. The deal, the first of its kind in the U.S., involves private partners and is part of San Jose’s green jobs strategy<\/a>. The Silicon Valley capital wants to hike its diversion rate to above 90% and shift entirely to renewable energy, all while creating 25,000 clean-tech jobs over the next 15 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a loaded question: Is the strike costing the City of Toronto money, or is it generating a financial windfall for the Corporation? City officials won’t touch that one with a barge pole. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We’ll be calculating the costs after the labour dispute ends,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d spokesperson Rob Andrusevich said Friday. No wonder: the strike’s ongoing net costContinue reading “JOHN LORINC: Throwing out the numbers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"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":[6675,5942,12655,6435,2227,408,5765,1030,1969,12656,416,4252,8711,2976,3004,405,19,506,391,3579,12654],"class_list":["post-5246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-auditor-general","tag-centre-island","tag-child-services","tag-city-manager","tag-composting","tag-councillor","tag-joe-pennachetti","tag-john-lorinc","tag-karen-stintz","tag-marketable-bio-gas","tag-pdf","tag-renewable-energy","tag-rob-andrusevich","tag-san-jose","tag-spokesperson","tag-the-star","tag-toronto","tag-united-states","tag-usd","tag-waste-management-services","tag-will-council"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJOHN LORINC: Throwing out the numbers - 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\/2009\/07\/06\/john-lorinc-throwing-out-the-numbers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN LORINC: Throwing out the numbers - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a loaded question: Is the strike costing the City of Toronto money, or is it generating a financial windfall for the Corporation? 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