Small Price To Pay For The War On Poverty.....

.....it's less than the office budget of one councilor.

$45Gs for muffin and cookie
Staff get together seeks to boost morale, get welfare workers on same page
By SUE-ANN LEVY

This Friday senior city officials will summon Toronto's welfare workers to the Metro Convention Centre for a $45,000 rah-rah session and lovefest.
The day-long event -- officially called the Toronto Employment and Social Services Professional Development Day -- will feature, among other speakers, a (morale-boosting) address from Mayor David Miller.
(That is indeed fitting given that he never met a government handout he didn't like. But I digress.)
Deputy city manager Sue Corke said the social services department has been through a "huge change" in the last 12 to 18 months and it's a way to make sure everybody who comes is "aligned with the new direction."
"We're bringing staff together to talk about the new vision and mission," adds Heather MacVicar, general manager of employment and social services.
When asked about the costs to hold the day, she insisted the budget was "minimal" and that only muffins will be served in the morning, along with coffee and one cookie -- nothing else.
"It's not a big story ... it's a muffin and a cookie," she said, reiterating at least three times that the cost is minimal.
Nizam Bacchus, the department's director of program support, said the $45,000 cost will cover the space (Rooms F and G go for about $7,500 each a day) and a continental breakfast for the 1,600 attendees.
(According to the convention centre's website, a continental breakfast goes for $16.50 per head and a deluxe continental breakfast is priced at $22 per person.)
Bacchus added that all of their offices will remain open ed by the remaining 391 welfare workers who will provide "full services" to all clients who show up that day. He also noted that those who attend will be asked to purchase their own lunches from the food court in the vicinity of the convention centre.
That said, the cost is hardly minimal.
If, during these hard times, senior city officials want to treat the 1,991 welfare workers to a muffin and cookie -- to use MacVicar's words -- buy them in bulk and deliver them to each office, along with a written message about the department's new "vision."
Or how about simply ensuring the welfare workers -- who by no means have an easy job of it -- feel like they're valued employees each and every day?
As one welfare worker who wrote me about the event contended, the city has "no money for basic services" but evidently enough to hold a lovefest at Canada's No. 1 convention and trade show facility.
Never mind basic services. What about money to handle the pressures on the welfare rolls seeing as Miller and Co. have managed to drain the social services reserve fund completely dry?
MacVicar confirmed the city has put an extra $36 million in the budget to cover the anticipated jump in the welfare caseload this year.
NUMBERS UP 8.5%
She said the numbers were up to 81,000 at the end of January, some 8.5% higher than the same time last year and they're expecting that to continue to increase to more than 100,000 by year's end.
I rest my case. This, folks, is but one very blatant example of a regime completely out of control and out of touch with the reality of the world around Socialist Silly Hall.
It did not escape my attention that the welfare lovefest is on the exact day the Miller regime will blow $230,000 on a day-long party to celebrate Toronto's 175th anniversary.
There will be many more examples like this, trust me, before the budget is finally approved on April 1.
But it makes it awfully hard to believe newly minted deputy city manager Cam Weldon when he advised the budget committee this past week that they've "addressed the recession" in this year's operating budget -- even if, I suspect, he was mouthing a carefully scripted party line from the Politburo.
Coun. Doug Holyday said everyone seems to have the message that "times are bad" but his colleagues at Socialist Silly Hall.
"They're addicted to spending," he said. "It's too bad there isn't some spendaholic clinic we could send them to ... they have a problem and no control to deal with it."