Shortly after she began her spiel promoting this year's $8.2-billion operating budget, city manager Shirley Hoy insisted that continuous improvement is alive and well at Socialist Silly Hall.

"Staff are always looking at ways we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations," she said, pulling out her tired (and tiresome) list of departmental program reviews completed or underway (which, in my view, result in not much more than a reorganization of the deck chairs on the Titanic).

"The city has done its due diligence." she added.

It was a mantra echoed by Mayor David Miller, who had the nerve to claim they've kept the property tax hike at a "reasonable" level -- a mere 3.75% -- partly because of the city's great cost containment efforts and other efficiencies.

(We won't dare remind His Blondness that all budgets, each and every year, must be balanced. The only thing different this year is that the province coughed up its share ahead of time.)

Nevertheless, Coun. Howard Moscoe, never one to miss an opportunity to add his two-cents worth, contended it was the "best budget in 30 years" -- reminding everyone, once again, that this is one over-the-hill trougher who should call it a day.

But as the speeches progressed -- before the budget and the 3.75% tax hike were approved 29-15 in one day of debate -- I realized they had something there.

Miller, his lackeys, Hoy and her top officials are committed to continuous improvement. Yes, indeed.

They've been duly diligent when it comes to continuously improving the number of city staff tripping over each other and the salaries they're paid.

Hoy noted in her presentation that the number of city staff has "improved" (aka increased) by 4,086 in the 10 years since amalgamation, an exercise I thought was supposed to streamline operations.

I'm guessing City Hall's hiring freeze of last summer is over too, as the 2008 budget includes 639 new employees.

It also appears Miller and his minions were duly diligent about "improving" what the city's top officials were paid last year -- despite foisting a long list of cost containment measures on Toronto citizens last fall and accepting a $160,000 handout from Mastercard to open city ice rinks in early December.

According to the province's annual salary disclosure information -- released a few hours after Hoy's spiel -- 1,738 city employees earned $100,000 or more in 2007. That's a 76% jump over 2006!

Since 2004, Miller's first year in office, the number of $100,000-plus earners has increased by a scandulous 246%. (For the record, Hoy earned $311,128 plus $9,079 in taxable benefits last year, an increase of nearly 10% from the year before.)

Is it any wonder the city's powerful TTC and CUPE union workers are poised to "continuously improve" their lot at the bargaining table as I write this? They know they have our mayor by his blonde hair, a mayor who'd sooner mortgage Toronto's future, I believe, than endure the embarrassment of a strike.

As Coun. Mike Del Grande pointed out, the city will never be fiscally sustainable if it can't control wages and benefits, its debt load, its huge unfunded liabilities or the hundreds of millions of dollars of backlogged repairs.

"I'm offended with what you don't see in this budget," he said. Del Grande and several of his right-wing colleagues stressed the tax hike this year is a far cry from the publicized 3.75%.

Del Grande figures the actual tax levy is another 15%, if one factors in the land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes -- expected to raise $175 million this year.

Coun. Case Ootes raised the separate rate for garbage pickup, intended to collect $17 million in extra fees this year and annual fees of $54 million. He said that's an "equivalent hidden tax" of 4%.

PAY AND PERQS REMAIN

Coun. Karen Stintz added that, contrary to the backpatting from Miller and Co., they've done everything to make it harder for people to "live in this city," own a house, park their car, even pay for a parking ticket and own pets -- while refusing to make sacrifices themselves by cutting pay and perqs.

Which brings me to another theory about continuous improvement.

The more Miller, his minions, Hoy and her honchos balance their budget on pins and needles, the more they need to "continuously improve" their stories about their stupendous budgeting skills.

However taxing their mantra, I've got to hand it to them -- they've been duly diligent with their creativity this year.