In a packed Committee Room 1, on the second floor of City Hall at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, all the key actors wore black: David Miller, the mayor; Shelley Carroll, the budget chief; Joe Penachetti, the city manager, and even Cam Weldon, the city’s acting chief financial officer.
Black was an odd choice of colour, since — at least on the face of it — the mood at the Budget Committee, to unveil the city’s $8.7-billion operating budget, was bright. The Mayor, bullish, boyish and buoyant, slipped easily into the role of the caring paterfamilias, with a gift-wrapped goodie for every group in our great metropolis. A 4% tax hike buys a freeze of transit fares, more housing for the homeless, increases in funding for welfare and tax cuts for small business.
“For those of you who are worried or are in need, I want you to know that your city government is doing everything that it can,” he told the room.
Ms. Carroll continued doling out the good news: Toronto is adding $3.2-million to its student nutrition and breakfast program, adding 44 school sites, and will now feed 100,000 students. The city will double the tree canopy by 2050, open this year a 3-1-1 call centre (answering city-related questions 24 hours a day) and reduce the backlog in court services, processing an additional 180,000 court cases.
Even parties are on schedule: “Planning will continue to celebrate the War of 1812,” Ms. Carrol said.
Later, responding to questions from reporters, the M
ayor even suggested that he’s a bargain, compared to that spendthrift in Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“The federal government spending increase is about $1,000 per Canadian,” Mr. Miller said. “Our budget costs just $89 per household.”
But once the official remarks ended, the mood quickly darkened around here. Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, attacked the “duplication, overlap and waste,” of “overpaid” municipal politicians.
Councillor Adam Vaughan (Trinity-Spadina) — who was talking to me — got fed up, and finally shouted at Mr. Gaudet, “don’t give me that crap!”
During the 10-minute shouting match that ensued, Mr. Vaughan revealed that he took a pay cut, from about $140,000 a year as a reporter at Citytv, to the $96,000 a year he makes today as a councillor. Mr. Gaudet, in answer to a question, said he makes about $77,500.
Mr. Vaughan accused Mr. Gaudet of living “in a world of ideology with no facts,” to which Mr. Gaudet responded, “You’ve got your own world view of your chattering class friends.”
Having exhausted the entertainment value of that side show, reporters then took the elevator to the 11th floor, the city finance department, for a “technical briefing,” where Mr. Pennachetti, the city manager, revealed that the mayor’s banquet of spending, including drawing $300-million from reserve funds, has left the city cupboard bare.
Asked about a 35% increase in city spending on the TTC, Mr. Penachetti said, “That’s a big increase. Thank God the fuel came down.”
And he worries that we’ll have trouble cutting Ontario Works cheques for about 100,000 Torontonians the city estimates will be on welfare by year’s end.
“There is literally nothing left in the reserve for Ontario Works,” he said. “Utilization of reserves is not a fiscally sustainable way to budget.” And he added, “There’s no rainy day fund. There’s no stabilization reserves.”
So black was a good choice of wardrobe after all.
After lunch, seven opposition councillors gathered on the second floor to unroll a big sheet of paper on which they’d scrawled 10% in red felt pen, which they call the city’s actual tax hike, when one adds in the garbage tax, vehicle registration and land transfer taxes, and water rate hikes.
Bruce Scott, the mayor’s executive assistant, who happened to be walking by, stopped and took a quick glance at the opposition councillors’ calculations.
He didn’t dispute them, but merely quipped, “It’s cheap at half the price.”
That is this year’s dismissive one-liner. But if Mr. Penachetti’s warnings are true, next year’s quip may be harder to formulate.
