Toronto’s top public servant and budget chief were at pains to avoid the words “service cuts” Monday, but a new report suggests it is increasingly likely there will be some reduction in city services in order to bridge next year’s estimated $774 million budget shortfall.
City manager Joe Pennachetti and budget chair Michael Del Grande convened a press conference to discuss the Core Service Review, a new report authored by consulting firm KPMG. The review, which began in May and cost $350,000, found that by eliminating or reducing some non-core services provided by the Public Works and Infrastructure department, the city could save $10 – 15 million. Public Work’s entire budget is $373.9-million.
“Council has to start with a determination on whether or not they feel some of the services and/or activities that we provide today are still, from their viewpoint, required for our residents and businesses in the city,” Pennachetti said. “Then we get into how we deliver the services and efficiencies and the potential of contracting out.”
“It’s all up for discussion. We said very clearly everything is up for discussion,” Del Grande answered when asked about possible service cuts. “Some things may get passed, some things may not get passed, but at the end of the day, our other choice is to close up this place in November.”
It was a much different message than the one Ford delivered during his 2010 mayoral campaign. As a candidate Ford promised to solve the city’s budget woes by finding government inefficiencies and without cutting services or raising taxes. While several councillors were in attendance Monday, Ford was absent.
Specific recommendations in the review include lowering the cost of street sweeping by leaving residential and collector streets alone after an initial spring clean. The report also suggests allowing snow to pile up higher before dispatching snow plows, as well as asking residents to clear their own windrows, the term for the line of snow left at the end of driveways by snowplows.
KPMG asserts that the city’s current target of recycling or composting 70 per cent of the city’s residential waste may be too costly and unrealistic, and suggests lowering it. That would mean halting programs to phase in waste diversion services in apartment buildings.
The review suggests continuing controversial efforts to privatize garbage pick-up and eliminating the water fluordization program, which KPMG conceded would likely result in significant negative impacts on dental health.
The review also reccomends “reducing the scale of bike infrastructure being developed” in the city.
Even if all the review’s recommendations are acted on, the city would be a long way from balancing its books. The maximum $15 million dollars worth of potential savings KPMG found will hardly put a dent in the $774-million target, and some suggestions, like eliminating fluoride from the water supply, are considered too politically unpopular to ever be implemented.
Del Grande said the city will likely have to make up the rest of the money by finding inefficiencies in city departments and introducing fees for using facilities like skating rinks. He said the Core Service Review is one part of a three-pronged budget process, and that a separate efficiency review and user fee study will be presented to council in September. In total $3 million has been budgeted for the three reviews.
Pennachetti and Del Grande both refused to predict how much money could be generated by better efficiency and user fees.
Raising taxes does not appear to be in Del Grande’s plans, even though he admitted tax rates are relatively low in Toronto.
“We have the lowest taxes in the GTA with the greatest services and funding provided, with a population that has a disdain for taxes, especially if they feel those taxes are not being respected,” he said. “In the same breath, when we look at increasing revenues, we are criticized as making cash grabs. When we look at changing services we are criticized as hurting the vulnerable. This is a poor hand to play with.”
The results of the public consultation portion of the Core Service Review suggest at least some Torontonians are actually willing to pay higher taxes. Nearly 60 per cent of the 13,000 people who took part in the consultation said they would be willing to pay more than a five per cent property tax increase in order to improve city services.
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, the chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, dismissed the public consultation as inaccurate and suggested left-wing activists had spoiled the data. “It’s not statistically valid. Those people self-selected, they decided to fill that form out,” he said. “There are certain individuals that go to those websites, there are certain people who go to those meetings, and we’ve all seen them at those same meetings. They’re going to skew it.”
Councillor Adam Vaughan, a vocal critic of the mayor’s administration, stood in the audience during the press conference and afterwards lashed out at the Ford and Minnan-Wong. “Now they’re taking aim at the consultation they designed, they conducted, they ran. What did they pay for that? This is again, more money for nothing,” he fumed. “This whole exercise is doing one thing, and one thing only: throwing money out the back door into the cars of consultants while folks in the city wonder about whether or not their city is going to have services next year.”
When asked whether the report’s recommendations could spell the end of his ambitious plan for a network separated bike lanes downtown, Minnan-Wong appeared unconcerned. “Even if the city were to scale back on the cycling infrastructure, we would still be providing more cycling infrastructure in the next five years than the last administration provided in four,” he responded. “I’m committed to the bike lane network and would like to see it implemented.”
In three weeks the findings of the Core Service Review will go before a series of standing committees that will be charged with deciding how or if they should be implemented. No final decisions will be made until the budget is presented next year.
