When asked in a press scrum yesterday what he thought of the $440.9-million in cost savings and revenue fixes set out in my column this past Sunday, Mayor David Miller was completely dismissive.

"They came up with raising (property) taxes 6% and spending our reserves ... that's where they got most of their money," he said of the long list of items put together by Coun. Mike Del Grande and I for next year.

Our plan was an attempt to show there is fat in City Hall that could offset the $356 million city officials claim will be raised from the controversial new City of Toronto Act taxes, if approved at council next week.

Miller also claimed we proposed raiding a reserve fund allocated to building the York University subway line.

"That's how they want to balance the operating budget ... that's really not very good economics," he said.

He added we'd proposed so many things, it "takes a while" to go through them all -- the message I've been repeatedly getting since Monday from the mayor's office in response to my requests for feedback on our $440.9-million savings plan.

I would have thought someone with the credentials of our mayor -- a Harvard economics degree, that is -- would have been able to go through the list in no time.

That said, since he admitted we'd proposed so many things -- some 22 items were in our package in fact -- why the devil would Miller hone in on just two of the items?

For the record, the two proposals he referred to -- raising residential property taxes by a total of 6% and using $90 million of the $245-million Hydro note due in December -- would amount to an extra $123 million extra next year.

Our mayor neglected to mention the biggest ticket item -- reducing council's generous fair wage policy that dictates any company wanting to do business with the city pay close to union wages. We proposed cutting the average fair wage of $42.58/hr. by $5 for a savings of $123-million.

He also did not comment on our proposal to eliminate the 2.25% wage hikes for merit and overtime over and above the 3.25% cost of living increase given to all city employees this year. That amounted to $86 million in savings.

Several councillors I spoke with in the past few days --including Gloria Lin dsay Luby, a member of the mayor's inner circle -- agreed the fair wage policy is too generous.

Lindsay Luby told me she'd like to see it lowered but felt that kind of move wouldn't get through council. She's right. It would never get by our union-friendly mayor or any of the councillors all known for their tight union ties like Paula Fletcher, Janet Davis and Howard Moscoe. Rest assured they could do something if the political will was there, however.

As for Miller's contentions that we proposed using reserve fund money allocated to the Spadina subway extension -- which he claimed was "not very good economics" -- Sunday's piece didn't say that at all.

What I clearly said was the city is due $245 million from a $980-million loan to Toronto Hydro at the end of this year. That money will be put into a Strategic Infrastructure Fund to pay for the waterfront, the Spadina subway and the mayor's environmental projects. We proposed taking the $90-million -- and only the $90-million -- that will be used to fund the mayor's pet climate change initiatives and instead use it to reduce the deficit hole.

In my view -- and that of many members of the public I've heard from since Sunday -- it makes perfect sense to make sure the city's priorities (like filling potholes, salvaging TTC routes and keeping community centres open) are addressed first before throwing money into trendy climate change initiatives, already addressed federally.

For his part, Del Grande said Miller's comments were "typical" -- either the message or the messenger are discredited any time the socialists are challenged.

"The fact is, instead of commenting they are items worth looking at, his dismissiveness indicates he's not open to any kind of change," he said. "The mayor's broom has lost its bristles ... he continues to play the role of the emperor with no clothes."