JANUARY 27, 2008: THE TORONTO SUN
David Miller's money juggle
City leaders see budget heading toward sustainability, we see taxes, fees, stop-gaps
By SUE-ANN LEVY
You heard it here folks.
The winds of change are upon us -- and it's not just the climate.
Tomorrow morning Mayor David Miller and his budget brains are expected to unveil an $8-billion-plus operating budget they claim is balanced for the first time since the megacity was born.
The mayor and his city manager, Shirley Hoy, will also tell all who are prepared to listen that this city is finally starting down the road to "fiscal sustainability."
We'll hear that the city has been able to make a $239-million projected deficit melt away -- not due to any attempts to get the city's humongous wage bill under control, mind you -- because the sugar daddies and mommies at Queen's Park came through with a nice little Christmas bailout of up to $300 million. Instead of making the city beg until the 11th hour for its yearly transit handout, the one-time fix came on Dec. 13.
The news is positive ... we've worked out things in advance ... 2008 is a positive year of moving towards fiscal sustainability," Joe Pennachetti, the city's chief financial officer, noted last week.
"I think we can expect a balanced budget that attempts to weave together people's desires with affordability," adds budget committee member Joe Mihevc of their "comprehensive" package which will not raid reserve funds this year -- because they're completely gone.
There's no doubt city officials will also make up the shortfall with a property tax hike. Both Mihevc and his budget committee colleague Gord Perks refused to say how much that would be. But judging from the recent comments by His Blondness, I'm betting on 4% -- pretty much double the rate of inflation and the maximum promised by Miller in his election platform.
Mihevc even contended -- with a straight face yet -- they'd already "cut close to the bone.
GOOD QUALITY SERVICES
"I feel great ... we will be able to offer Torontonians a good quality of municipal services at a reasonable dollar," he said.
"We're going to do what Torontonians want to protect their basic services," added Perks.
Not that I agree. But a fiscally sustainable city? Well, that's an ever bigger load of hooey. The only thing City Hall's greenhouse gasbags appear able to sustain -- besides their practice of making tax dollars vanish into thin air -- is the favourable spin they put on the city's precarious fiscal state.
For one thing, the transit bailout is one-time money only, meaning the city will find itself in exactly the same predicament next year. I predict it will be even worse once contract negotiations are done with the police, TTC and the city's inside and outside workers. The precedent has already been set with the 9.66% wage hike handed to the city's 3,200 firefighters this past June.
Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong said getting the bailout from the province was a double-edged sword. While the money is desperately needed for transit, he says, it just "feeds an addiction" and it doesn't offer any incentive to "run the city better."
And it's disingenuous for city officials to imply the city's books have been balanced with any sort of sound fiscal management. Make no mistake. The 2008 budget will be balanced on the backs of property taxpayers, home buyers, vehicle owners and TTC commuters. Predictions are that the city's land transfer tax, which kicks in this Friday, plus the vehicle ownership tax, to be collected later in the fall, will help offset $175 million of this year's deficit. Let's not forget the 15-cent TTC fare hike handed to commuters on Nov. 4.
NEW FEES
There's also newly proposed fees to take down private trees, the garbage levy slated to begin in June, higher water rates and new recreational user fees.
"Life is great (at City Hall) as long as the outreached hand gets more," says Coun. Mike Del Grande. "It's a pay as you go if you're in the middle class."
Kevin Gaudet of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the budget has been balanced at "great taxpayer pain and expense" with fee increases and new taxes.
"The mayor is a spendaholic," he adds. "He should really check himself into a spending abuse clinic."
The winds of change are upon us -- and it's not just the climate.
Tomorrow morning Mayor David Miller and his budget brains are expected to unveil an $8-billion-plus operating budget they claim is balanced for the first time since the megacity was born.
The mayor and his city manager, Shirley Hoy, will also tell all who are prepared to listen that this city is finally starting down the road to "fiscal sustainability."
We'll hear that the city has been able to make a $239-million projected deficit melt away -- not due to any attempts to get the city's humongous wage bill under control, mind you -- because the sugar daddies and mommies at Queen's Park came through with a nice little Christmas bailout of up to $300 million. Instead of making the city beg until the 11th hour for its yearly transit handout, the one-time fix came on Dec. 13.
The news is positive ... we've worked out things in advance ... 2008 is a positive year of moving towards fiscal sustainability," Joe Pennachetti, the city's chief financial officer, noted last week.
"I think we can expect a balanced budget that attempts to weave together people's desires with affordability," adds budget committee member Joe Mihevc of their "comprehensive" package which will not raid reserve funds this year -- because they're completely gone.
There's no doubt city officials will also make up the shortfall with a property tax hike. Both Mihevc and his budget committee colleague Gord Perks refused to say how much that would be. But judging from the recent comments by His Blondness, I'm betting on 4% -- pretty much double the rate of inflation and the maximum promised by Miller in his election platform.
Mihevc even contended -- with a straight face yet -- they'd already "cut close to the bone.
GOOD QUALITY SERVICES
"I feel great ... we will be able to offer Torontonians a good quality of municipal services at a reasonable dollar," he said.
"We're going to do what Torontonians want to protect their basic services," added Perks.
Not that I agree. But a fiscally sustainable city? Well, that's an ever bigger load of hooey. The only thing City Hall's greenhouse gasbags appear able to sustain -- besides their practice of making tax dollars vanish into thin air -- is the favourable spin they put on the city's precarious fiscal state.
For one thing, the transit bailout is one-time money only, meaning the city will find itself in exactly the same predicament next year. I predict it will be even worse once contract negotiations are done with the police, TTC and the city's inside and outside workers. The precedent has already been set with the 9.66% wage hike handed to the city's 3,200 firefighters this past June.
Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong said getting the bailout from the province was a double-edged sword. While the money is desperately needed for transit, he says, it just "feeds an addiction" and it doesn't offer any incentive to "run the city better."
And it's disingenuous for city officials to imply the city's books have been balanced with any sort of sound fiscal management. Make no mistake. The 2008 budget will be balanced on the backs of property taxpayers, home buyers, vehicle owners and TTC commuters. Predictions are that the city's land transfer tax, which kicks in this Friday, plus the vehicle ownership tax, to be collected later in the fall, will help offset $175 million of this year's deficit. Let's not forget the 15-cent TTC fare hike handed to commuters on Nov. 4.
NEW FEES
There's also newly proposed fees to take down private trees, the garbage levy slated to begin in June, higher water rates and new recreational user fees.
"Life is great (at City Hall) as long as the outreached hand gets more," says Coun. Mike Del Grande. "It's a pay as you go if you're in the middle class."
Kevin Gaudet of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the budget has been balanced at "great taxpayer pain and expense" with fee increases and new taxes.
"The mayor is a spendaholic," he adds. "He should really check himself into a spending abuse clinic."