How must those giving their first deputation in City Hall’s budget process interpret the fact that the 60 citizen spectators at the Budget Committee last Wednesday, February 18, often outnumbered councillors 20 to 1?
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City committees usually have a set quorum, but at hearings today, quorum just seems to mean some members still within the postal code.
If you’re making a presentation and saying something reasonably informed, and it’s relevant to someone’s responsibilities – or they’re just feeling frisky that day – one councillor may listen, for what that’s worth.
Of course, there’s always Councillor Gord Perks, the Colombo of budget hearings. He can be counted on for a deft smackdown, usually prefaced by affable, muddled disclaimers – “So if I understand correctly,” “Here’s where I’m confused” or “Please help me” – culminating in “So are you suggesting we should find hundreds of millions of savings in core services, and make those cuts year after year?”
Well, when you put it like that, no.
Two rules of thumb when it comes to budget consultations : If I’m talking to you as a deputant, I’m speaking to someone else. And I’m not hoping that they’ll understand now so much as betting they’ll remember tomorrow. Those who get anything out of this process have an appreciation for the long game. This isn’t about 2009’s budget, it’s about 2011’s election.
The Toronto Real Estate Board, for example, predictably engages in some rear-guard requests to axe the Land Transfer Tax, saying property values went down by 1.5 per cent.
But its real talking point is the “blue ribbon” panel assigned by the mayor, as a concession to right-wing opponents, to find “efficiencies.” The TREB has no hope of pushing any of its cutback recommendations into the budget the real object of their game is manoeuvring to open up future debates.
Perks says, “The panel recommended we make [$150 million] of savings over two years,” adding that council did that and more. “You’re satisfied,” he asks, “that that’s the approach we should be taking, not an 8 per cent property tax increase?” (The proposed increase is 4 per cent.)
TREB spokesperson Von Palmer responds, “Most of your savings were from staffing costs. If you go through the panel recommendations, they talked about monetizing assets.”
Ah, there it is. Assets & Infrastructure may be one of the few rhetorical growth industries this year. The right wing will say the market should handle these. Lefties will want further public investment.
But in what form? As the recession deepens, so does council’s commitment to increase Toronto’s “economic competitiveness,” a vague aim that has united the two wings. To the right, public infrastructure is for attracting corporations. The left has conceded that ground, but wants it to be via arts and culture.
It isn’t lost on anyone that the deputation list is heavy on arts organizations, who are not here to argue, but rather to thank the budget committee for past support and nudge it toward more. Among them are Lakeshore Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, Artscape, UrbanArts and more.
The expected condemnations of “frivolous” arts funding have already surfaced, but the finance committee is to be lauded for increasing arts funding by a modest amount although the city has now emptied its $43 million welfare reserve fund.
Getting a handle on the actual cash spent on the arts isn’t easy, since culture grants, including those delivered by the Toronto Arts Council, are dispensed through the Community Partnership Investment Program. They’re often lumped in with grants to sports, school nutrition and youth leadership programs.
Sure, this practice acknowledges that the arts are a social service, but it also puts the Toronto International Film Festival grant in the same budget item as at-risk youth and their camcorders.
Nuit Blanche, meanwhile, is funded by tourism and economic development money.
On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see arts show up in so many parts of the bureaucracy. On the other, you have to wonder if they’ll ever get their own discreet budget and taskmaster.
The artists delegations seem aware of the political niceties and the diplomacy needed to make the transition from deputant to political force. No cranky criticism here.
“There’s been a lot of talk today about the economic crisis,” says Tim Jones, CEO of groundbreaking arts-lobby-cum-developer Artscape. “I think it’s worth reflecting, for just a second, and imagining where we would be had it not been for the cultural renaissance our city’s gone through.”
Artists rallied fervently and without prompting in support of last year’s controversial new taxes that are keeping the Miller vision afloat. One imagines they would like that favour returned in the future.
“What we’re missing is a targeted investment plan to really capitalize on an arts strategy,” says Jones. “I’d like us to look at this as a year to set the stage for a much larger investment in the creative economy.”
Seems like Jones and company have grasped the fine art of negotiating themselves a future.
BUDGET HITS
Proposed items in the city’s 2009 operating budget
- 4 per cent property tax increase
- Development charge freeze
- 100 new TTC buses
- 70 km of new bike lanes
- $12 mil more for shelter system
- $300,000 for Nuit Blanche
- $4.1 mil for expanded Streets To Homes project
Audio Clips
Gord Perks and the Toronto Real Estate Board rep.
Gord Perks and Board of Trade’s Carol Wilding
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