Cash strapped City Hall finds a way to increase arts budget another $1.5 million
After a mere three meetings, the fiscal fruitcakes on the city's budget committee put the finishing touches on this year's $8.2-billion operating budget in 82 minutes flat yesterday.
Controversial new taxes -- starting this November -- for those citizens who dare put more than one bag of straight garbage every two weeks? Approved in mere seconds.
Fee hikes averaging 8% for families who use city rec centres, rinks and pools? Passed in barely a blink of an eye.
Don't worry, be happy folks. Mayor David Miller and his wily budget brains have it all in hand. The books are balanced (on the backs of the taxpayers) and the city's $2.6 billion in long-term debt, coupled with the $440 million that will be paid in interest costs to service that debt, is nothing to sneeze at. Recession? Well City Hall insiders insist it won't happen, just the same as Miller keeps telling us a 3.75% tax hike is "in line" with inflation, which averaged 1.9% last year.
In fact, the committee was feeling so enamoured with their finesse at juggling the budget shells yesterday that budget chief Shelley Carroll was quite proud to introduce one "late breaking motion" -- one that would involve a "slight increase to the envelope" for city grants.
Introduced by Kyle Rae -- who fancies himself City Hall's Patron Saint of the Arts -- the motion proposed that his arts friends get a precious $1.5 million more this year on top of the generous scheme already proposed for them.
I wonder if people in Toronto living in the same situation as Cindy Buott would agree with Rae and Mihevic about support for the "arts"
Cindy Buott, a single mother in Peterborough, Ont., says she feels all but forgotten by governments at all levels.
She and her 15-year-old daughter live on $1,300 a month, most of it social assistance. Buott worked for $10 an hour as a telemarketer until a debilitating case of Crohn's disease forced her to quit. There's little cash left once she pays rent, heating, hydro and telephone bills, she said in an interview.
"I eat very light and there are times when I just don't eat. Especially when it gets toward the end of the month."
Buott, 50, is far from alone.
There was even a nice extra $18,000 "tip" for the Friends of Joe Mihevc, otherwise known as Artscape -- the group behind a highly controversial scheme to create 26 "affordable" housing units for starving artists on the Wychwood Car Barns site in Mihevc's ward.
With this special top-up, the grants budget will jump some 3.75% this year to $43.2 million -- even though all city departments and programs were told to keep to a zero increase.
Unfortunately only councillors Doug Holyday and John Parker were there to call the budget committee on their 11th-hour shenanigans.
Holyday said they're sending the wrong message to city staff, who were asked to do more with less. "If we see that for our friends we're willing to make these changes, what's the incentive for staff to come back at zero," he said. "Our instructions are meaningless."
But all reason was lost on the friends and lapdogs of Mayor Miller.
Rae said the city has fallen behind in its financing of the arts in this city (causing some 15 years of "embarrassment") and given the mayor's creativity and prosperity agendas, they must "catch up."
Mihevc was most incensed at the suggestion they were simply giving grants to their friends. "It makes a mockery of what we're trying to do with these sectors," he said, insisting he's pained that he can only increase the grants budget by a measly 3.75%, preferring double-digit increases instead.
Asked where the extra money was found to keep the books balanced, Rae said he couldn't name the savings at this point but they were "able to cobble this together."
Carroll said 45 of 85 deputations that came to their budget hearings on Feb. 5 were on the arts -- which caused a "red light" to go off for her as budget chief. "Every year there's an urgent need ... (this year) that red light issue is the arts," she said.
Well, duh. I hate to suggest to the Mistress of Double Talk that if you give out the message the mayor's city is a highly creative one -- Richard Florida yada yada -- and the culture plan is a priority, why wouldn't arts groups come down to City Hall to cash in on the opportunity.
It's up to the so-called watchdogs of the public purse to recognize that this might not be the right time to reinvest in culture -- given that the city can barely afford to fix its potholes, make the subway an attractive alternative to the car and clear its snow. Real vision means understanding the city's most pressing priorities, however unsexy those priorities might be.
Questioned after the meeting about his colleague's criticisms, Rae said the value of developing partnerships is "lost on Coun. Holyday."
I beg to differ. Consideration for those who pay the real freight in this city -- and it's not the starving artists who prop up the likes of Rae and Mihevc -- is completely lost on the Miller regime.
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