$9.6 billion
Size of the city’s 2014 budget, 34 per cent of which comes from property taxes and 66 per cent from user fees, the municipal land transfer tax and provincial and federal grants and subsidies. The city receives only a small share of overall tax dollars – 10 per cent, compared to 55 per cent for the feds and 35 per cent for the province – even though it’s responsible for providing the lion’s share of services.
2.5 %
The residential property tax increase being recommended by staff. The mayor railed on Monday that Toronto’s back on the gravy train. Well, maybe if he hadn’t saddled us with the extra cost of the subway extension in Scarborough to buy votes… Reality is, Toronto’s property tax rate is still the lowest in the GTA.
$409 million
Recommended Parks, Forestry and Recreation budget, a 3.5 per cent increase, or $12.8 million, over 2013. Recreation services make up 50 per cent of the department’s total budget, which covers the delivery of 80,684 recreation programs citywide. This year’s budget includes free programming in an additional 16 community centres in priority neighbourhoods.
$2,576
Average property taxes homeowners will pay in 2014. The average property tax paid by homeowners in the 905 and elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area is $4,370. That pays for all programs and services provided by the city, including the second-largest child care system in Canada: 57,000 licensed spaces.
$3.1 million
The cost of hiring 56 new paramedics to respond to an expected 3 to 5 per cent increase in emergency calls due to an aging population. The city says more staff are also needed to hit the 8:59-minute response time target for life-threatening emergencies.
360
Number of police officers to be hired in four planned recruitment classes. The current collective agreement doesn’t expire until the end of 2014, so there are no hidden costs related to cop hires for 2013. But it’s sure to be a bargaining chip for cop support in the 2014 election. Toronto has the province’s second-highest policing cost per capita – $376 per person in 2012 – despite having one of the lowest crime rates, according to the most recent OMBI Performance Measurement Report.
$17 million
Increase in the city’s total subsidy to the TTC, which was frozen at $411 million for the last two years – a pittance when you consider how much of the TTC’s operating cost is funded by rider fares, which, by the way, are going up 5 cents in both 2014 and 2015.
$335 million
Projected revenue from the land transfer tax, which the mayor says he wants to cut by 10 per cent. Or at least that’s what he’s been telling realtors, who’ve been pumping questionable public opinion surveys on the subject. City staff are not behind such a cut, and for good reason. It would blow a hole right through the budget.
9.4%
Amount of the proposed reduction in funding for Shelter, Support and Housing despite an expected increase of about 5 per cent in shelter bed nights in 2014.
2
Number of new libraries opening, a small victory for a system that’s absorbed more than its share of cuts and still accounts for only 2 cents of every tax dollar.
2016
Year by which Toronto was supposed to increase arts funding to $25 per capita. That projection has been pushed back to 2018.
1 billion
Not the savings claimed by the mayor in dollars since he took office, but litres of water used by residents every day. That’s enough to fill the Rogers Centre.
With files from Ben Spurr.
