You are going to end up getting screwed if you are not in one of Mayor Miller's chosen circle; unions, environuts, waterfront condo owners, island squatters, artistes, social in-activists, and no amount of gobbley gook will change that....hopefully the mayor, councillors, beauracrats and unions wiil wear protection.
Decoding city budget bafflegab
March 28, 2007
Jim Byers
Paul Moloney
city hall bureau
Municipal budgets have never been confused with a racy novel. But a professor at Ryerson University says some words used in the City of Toronto's latest financial report take jargon and gibberish to a whole new level.
The operating budget, released Monday, contains acronyms such as OMBI and COTA. Potential taxes are called "revenue tools." And what appear to be budget shortfalls are labelled as "net pressures."
It's all a bit much, says Mier Siemiatycki, from Ryerson's department of politics and public administration.
"Municipal budgets have always been a minefield of unintelligible jargon or gibberish, as far as outsiders are concerned," he said yesterday. "There's stuff about mill rates and assessments that causes people's eyes to glaze over. But it seems we've taken another big step in the direction of incomprehensibility here."
Page 35 of a city budget document given to reporters on Monday carries the heading "Getting to a Balanced Budget." The first line shows a figure of $292 million next to the words "adjusted pressure." The next line talks about one-time funding from COTA and other sources. After a few more entries, the line at the bottom of the page says "Net Pressure – zero."
City officials insist they're not trying to confuse anyone. When the document speaks of $292 million in "adjusted pressure" it really means that, after whacking all the spending it could, the city was still short $292 million because more was needed for salary hikes and program improvements.
The bureaucrats propose to wrestle the total down some more by taking money from reserves, imposing a 3.8 per cent property tax increase, taking advantage of new taxing powers under the City of Toronto Act, or COTA, and pleading with the province to hand over $71 million for welfare programs.
Asking the province for welfare money was labelled: "Provincial Responsibilities: Honour Legislated Social Service Cost Sharing." That's a line Mayor David Miller has roughly translated to: "Pay your bills."
No comments:
Post a Comment