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link — Comments Off on The budget knives come out for waterfront development
12
Apr 11

The budget knives come out for waterfront development

Natalie Alcoba and Peter Kuitenbrouwer, in what I have to imagine is a story being pushed by someone  at City Hall:

Frustration with the pace and pricey bureaucracy of redeveloping Toronto’s port lands has got Mayor Rob Ford’s administration wondering if the city can sell off some of its own parcels separate from the agency that has been guiding transformation on the lake shore.

The federal, Ontario and city governments created Waterfront Toronto in 2001 as the “master planner and lead developer” on 52 hectares of prime real estate that had historically been the domain of industry. Of that land, Toronto owns 56%, the Toronto Port Authority 24%, and 20% is in the hands of the private sector.

via Waterfront Toronto is moving too slowly: critics | Posted Toronto | National Post.

Selling off parcels of land — removing them from the purview of Waterfront Toronto — is an insane suggestion, likely driven by a need to find saleable assets that can help bring down next year’s budget gap. While progress on the waterfront is not visible to those who don’t, you know, visit the waterfront, those who have actually gone down to look at the progress have to acknowledge that significant headway has been made.

Simply selling off land to the private sector without following an integrated plan for development will lead to the same mistakes that were made with the central and western waterfront — soulless condo towers with no neighbourhood feel.

In an interview with the Globe & Mail’s Lisa Rochon this weekend, architect Moshe Safdie was asked about the mistakes Toronto made with its initial waterfront development. He said:  “Back in the 1980s, Toronto’s waterfront was developed intensely and generated extraordinary taxes but it wasn’t invested into infrastructure that could make a difference.”

Someone in the mayor’s office must have only read as far as “extraordinary taxes” before stopping.

Damn near the entire cast of characters is quoted in the Post article. Peter Milczyn posits that selling off city-owned land will help to “accelerate” the project. Through magic. Denzil Minnan-Wong rages about “squandered money on consultants” and “sole-sourced” arrangements and projects. Which seems like a hell of an accusation to make unless you’ve got evidence to back it up.

Doug Holyday, meanwhile, is mad because too many of the planners who work on the project make more than $100,000 per year. Because if there’s one place you want to cheap out on talent, it’s the planning and execution of billion-dollar waterfront redevelopment. Just hire a bunch of students to do it!

Even the mayor’s press secretary, Adrienne Batra, piles on, showing just how big a target they’ve made these projects. “I think there is certainly a good opportunity for development in the area, and absolutely we want to see the private sector involved,” she says, presumably ignoring that private sector companies are already involved at many levels, including planning, architecture and construction.

The article notes that despite asking to retain a seat on the Waterfront Toronto board, Ford has skipped every meeting. During the election, Ford told the Post editorial board that the city could not afford to spend any money on Waterfront development.

This reads like the first shot in a concentrated attempt to vilify an organization before gutting their support and funding. Disgusting and sad.

 

feature — Comments Off on Finding waste: Hurry up please it’s time
20
Mar 11

Finding waste: Hurry up please it’s time

David Rider:

The City of Toronto is preparing to unleash pricey management consultants on all departments and agencies, with orders to uncover waste and identify city services ripe for “potential reductions and discontinuation.”

Executive committee is expected to authorize the reviews Monday, kicking off months of painful deliberations to find $775 million in savings and revenue to balance the 2012 operating budget.

via Team Ford set to give go-ahead to gravy-sniffing consultants – thestar.com.

Tomorrow the Executive Committee will consider EX4.10, a report on the 2012 budget process. This represents basically everything you’ve been hearing about when people mention “2012” and all the terrible things that come with it. In brief: the city will spend three million dollars on consultants, who will identify areas where the city can save money. Presumably they will find enough in cuts to shave 774 million dollars off the city’s operating budget, as that’s the  amount of pressure the city faces next year. The City of Toronto must balance its operating budget and cannot carry a defecit.

Why this is harder than anyone will admit: read this.

Here are the things that the city spends a significant amount of its revenues on: Police Services, TTC, Debt Charges, Fire Services, Shelter & Housing, Parks & Rec. Those would be your “first tier” — the big-ticket items. Then you have Employment & Social Services, Transportation Services, and the Toronto Library. Beyond that, you get into small-ticket items like community partnerships (ie. grants) — these will be cut, but it will be for ideological reasons more than anything else. People will claim that governments simply shouldn’t be supporting, for example, an arts program, when “it can’t afford it.”

Yes, there is a lot of room for efficiencies in the programs offered by the City. Finding such efficiencies should be an ongoing project. But you’re not going to find enough efficiencies to dig your way out of this hole. This will be about taking a long, hard look at everything the city offers and deciding if something can be eliminated or drastically cut.

This will be amount making city services fit into the budget, as opposed to making a budget that fits city services.

David Nickle talked to Shelley Carroll, and she put it like this:

Don Valley East Councillor Shelley Carroll was budget chief under Mayor David Miller. She said she supports the planned review, but was skeptical that council would have the stomach to actually implement the service cuts and realignments that would be necessary to find the quarter-billion dollars in savings.

“Councillors defend – we’re great at defending,” she said. “And if we’re going to do this on the council chamber floor on Channel 10, we’re just going to defend the heck out of everything.”

Carroll said councillors need to meet and focus in on areas where they’re all willing to make cuts.

“We need to do this so we know what the councillors’ no-go sacred cows are,” she said.

“If we find one, then we need to know where else you want to look to find efficiencies.”

via InsideToronto Article: Former budget chief skeptical of mayor’s savings plan

She knows, of course, that most of the operating budget is made up of either mandated programs or “no-go sacred cows.” It’s very challenging to fill this hole without killing a sacred cow. (I won’t rule out, though, that they may pull a rabbit out of their hat that will balance 2012 and shift pressure to 2013. It’s happened before.)

Keeping to the same pace as the 2011 budget process, this stuff will happen very very quickly over the summer. From the report, here’s the schedule we’re looking at:

At least it won’t be boring.

link — Comments Off on The commercial property tax question
10
Mar 11

The commercial property tax question

Writing for OpenFile, Tim Alamenciak looks at the issue of empty storefronts in the city:

Back on Queen Street East, some storefronts have been empty for years, others mere months. When Philip Traikos became the real estate agent for the whole south side stretch of stores from Woodbine Avenue to Northern Dancer Boulevard in 2008, all of them were empty except for the bank branches of TD and BMO. Since then, Living Lighting (a lighting store) and SupperWorks (a food preparation service) have moved in, among others. As to why so many spaces are still vacant, Traikos says, “that’s the million dollar question”

via Toronto’s empty storefronts a tough sell | OpenFile.

Read the comment thread as well, where there’s a good discussion of Toronto’s commercial property tax rates, including a series of posts from a very singularly-minded crusader. I didn’t know, for example, that vacant storefronts pay only half the property tax.

The city has continued the previous administration’s program to rebalance commercial tax rates with residential rates, but this is probably something that deserves more attention.

link — Comments Off on Miller’s surplus is the gift that keeps on giving
02
Mar 11

Miller’s surplus is the gift that keeps on giving

Oh, yeah. You know that thing where it was revealed that the mayor secretly asked Dalton McGuinty for hundreds of millions of dollars? Despite the fact that he was once adamant that the city didn’t need provincial funding? The premier said no.

On another note: Sometimes I wonder if maybe Miller shouldn’t have just spent the 2010 surplus money on a city-owned hovercraft and spared us all the smoke and mirrors of the 2011 budget.

Kelly Grant and Karen Howlett with the Globe & Mail:

The mayor’s press secretary said that Toronto routinely asks for more money in its pre-budget submission to the province and this year is no different.

However, Adrienne Batra stressed that Mr. Ford didn’t need provincial aid to balance the city’s 2011 budget without a property-tax increase.

“There’s one fundamental difference,” Ms. Batra said. “The funding here was not needed to balance the (2011) budget.”

via McGuinty shoots down Ford’s request for more than $350-million – The Globe and Mail.

The obvious response to Ms. Batra is, of course, “Would you have been able to balance the 2011 budget without a property tax increase without prior year surpluses and reserves?”

Related to this is a “Talking Points Memo” memo circulated to  22 “friendly councillors” of the mayor’s office last week. Uncovered and posted by OpenFile Toronto’s Jonathan Goldsbie, it is all sorts of ridiculous at various points, but the capper is the last page, which gives justification for spending all surplus and reserve funds to balance the 2011 budget with no thought to 2012:

By applying all accumulated surpluses to the 2011 budget, we unmasked the true financial condition for all to see. The 2012 budget forecast reflects the true gap between the city’s revenues and spending habits.

Gee, thanks. It’s a bit like emptying out someone’s savings account just to make it really obvious how little money they make.

P.S. The 22 councillors who received the talking point memo? The results from the vote on the Tenant Defence Fund from last week probably serve as a good indication.

The “No” votes are Team Ford. I’m thinking Jaye Robinson would be considered a friendly too. Perhaps Doug Ford isn’t included in the list of 22 councillors since he works out of the mayor’s office.

link — Comments Off on Ford sought $150 million from province to fix city with “spending problem, not revenue problem”
28
Feb 11

Ford sought $150 million from province to fix city with “spending problem, not revenue problem”

David Rider with the Toronto Star:

Mayor Rob Ford, who campaigned on the city having a spending — not a revenue — problem, is asking the Ontario government for an injection of more than $150 million in the provincial budget expected in late March, the Star has learned.

In a four-page letter dated Jan. 25 sent by Ford to Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, and obtained by the Star, the mayor asks for money for road construction and repair, public transit projects, a Fort York visitor centre and the renewal of programs to fund subsidized child care, housing and services for immigrants.

via Ford asks province for more than $150M – thestar.com.

That the letter was dated January 25th indicates that Team Ford realized early on the depth of the city’s revenue problems. Funny that they haven’t really acknowledged these problems at all throughout the budget debate.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than an admission that Ford was entirely wrong about the fiscal state of the city during his campaign.

link — Comments Off on Toronto’s mayor votes against funding for STI screening
27
Feb 11

Toronto’s mayor votes against funding for STI screening

And, of course, the other story from last week. The Mayor was once again on the losing end of a 44-1 vote:

Mr. Ford’s was the only dissenting vote against a motion reinstating $100,000 in provincial funds for syphilis and HIV screening – a budgetary addition that won’t cost the city anything.

“Everyone says it’s provincial money,” Mr. Ford said when asked why he voted against the funds. “No. It’s taxpayers’ money. So, you know what? In the big picture, they say it doesn’t cost the city a dime. Well, it costs people money. … There’s many reasons why.”

via Ford says budget has kept his promises – The Globe and Mail.

Ford was the only member of council to take the libertarianish ideology to this level, but there were echoes of this kind of attitude in several other votes this past week. The city’s rebate for low-flow toilets, for example, seemed to have been a smart investment for the city. It returned far more in savings than it cost. So why cut it? Because “government investment” is now a dirty word.

link — Comments Off on Horse trading at city hall
25
Feb 11

Horse trading at city hall

CitySlikr — whose coverage of this week’s events on Twitter was awesome — details a small story about Councillor Josh Colle from yesterday’s session:

Josh Colle, one of the freshman councillors and political moderates, voted with the mayor on every budget item save for the Parks and Forestry and Library budgets. That’s not blind adherence but pretty solid support. In turn, when Councillor Colle’s motion came to a vote, a motion, let me add, that bore no financial impact on the budget, it just asked for a report on front yard parking fees and was shepherded through with the help of Councillor Cesar Palacio, a councillor plucked out of well-deserved obscurity owing solely to his slavish devotion to the mayor, it lost by one. You know who voted against it? Mayor Ford.

When the results were announced, catcalls could be heard directed at Councillor Colle. “They’re not your friends, Josh!”

via Notes On A Budget Debate From The Peanut Gallery « All Fired Up In The Big Smoke.

Two things about Councillor Josh Colle, who took over Howard Moscoe’s old ward in Eglinton-Lawrence. First, there’s this interesting story Josh Matlow tells about the time, soon after the election, that he met with Nick Kouvalis. Kouvalis, thinking Matlow was Colle, started trying to butter him with tales of his father — Liberal MPP Mike Colle — before trying to get him to agree to vote with the mayor on the budget.

Second, there’s the small matter of probably the only election promise Ford has broken since he took office. During the campaign, he promised to stop the proposed redevelopment of Lawrence Heights. He even yelled into a megaphone about stopping it. But at the end of December, he declared that he wouldn’t actively work against the project, saying that he didn’t want to step on the local councillor’s toes. That councillor? Josh Colle.

I don’t profess to know if any of this, or what CitySlikr noted above, is related. But it does paint an interesting (if faint) picture of the kind of horse trading that seems to go on between councillors and the mayor’s office.

feature — Comments Off on We need to talk about 2012
25
Feb 11

We need to talk about 2012

Megan O’Toole with the National Post details the totally bizarre part of yesterday’s council meeting, wherein any discussion about the implications of the 2011 budget on 2012 was ruled out of order:

At one point, Speaker Frances Nunziata (York South-Weston) opted to shut down discussion on the 2012 outlook, spurring a furious outburst from Councillor Janet Davis (Beaches-East York).

“That has never happened in this chamber,” Ms. Davis fumed later, noting the 2011 budget documents are rife with references to the following year’s outlook, meaning the topic should be free for discussion.

“If this Mayor thinks that this budget that’s passed today has no impact on next year, he is misleading the people of this city, and it’s totally outrageous,” she said.

via Fantastic day for taxpayers, mayor says | Posted Toronto | National Post.

Enough to make your head explode.

Here’s the thing about 2012 — I’ve written about this before — it’s become incredibly clear that there are very few ways for the mayor to handle next year’s budget and still maintain his populist, good-guy, I’m-saving-you-money image. The reports could not be more clear: either we see significant property tax increases — bigger than we saw in any of the David Miller years, I’d suspect — or incredibly painful service cuts.

There are other options, of course, and we’ll probably see a combination of games played to make things work. (Selling stuff is on the table, though not Toronto Hydro apparently.)

This report from city staff is clear that the real answer comes from improving relationships with the provincial government. Page 26 refers to “Sustainable provincial funding (50% transit operating funding)”, while Page 35 notes that the capital budget through to 2020 is manageable except for the TTC.

Real fiscal responsibility would call for the mayor to address this need head-on. But, again, under his direction council has essentially denied itself achievable revenues (property taxes, vehicle registration taxes) this year, putting itself in probably the worst possible position to negotiate with other levels of government.

David Miller was often derided by those in the media for going after new funds from the provincial government. He was “crying poor.” There were many CFRB-types who called for the city to go on a quixotic quest to get its own “fiscal house in order” before asking the provincial government for funding.

This always bothered me because it ignores recent history. It wasn’t until the mid-90s that the province shirked its responsibilities for funding transit in Toronto. And since that time, for a ton of different reasons, the city has never been able to find a way to stabilize its year-to-year finances. Is it so crazy to wonder if it’s simply impossible?

I don’t think it is. And I’d speculate that that is the same realization the mayor and those around him are coming to. They’d simply rather avoid that reality than talk about it.

link — Comments Off on 2011 budget rich with symbolism, but not much else
25
Feb 11

2011 budget rich with symbolism, but not much else

The Globe & Mail’s Anna Mehler Paperny:

“The ink’s not even dry on the 2011 budget. I want people to enjoy the zero-per-cent tax increase,” he said, adding only that “we have to go really hard in 2012” to close a budgetary shortfall pegged at $774-million.

The budget braved a raft of attempts to save everything from additional staff for the city ombudsman to $75,000 cut from the tenant defence fund, the soon-to-be-closed Urban Affairs library and cut bus routes.

via Ford says budget has kept his promises – The Globe and Mail.

Over the past two days, councillors approved the 2011 operating and capital budgets with no major amendments. So bus routes are cut. The Urban Affairs Library will close. Conservation programs like rebates for low-flow toilets are gone.

Gord Perks’ motion on the first day, when councillors were debating 2011 tax rates, tells the whole story: this was, essentially, the exact same budget as last year except council used a combination of service cuts and one-time revenues to avoid an inflationary increase to residential property taxes. (Also, so they could cut the vehicle registration tax.)

A small increase (far below inflation) to the amount of revenue brought in by property taxes could have retained all services.

It should be noted that a ‘property tax freeze’ is a totally misleading phrase. If the federal or provincial governments were to freeze income taxes, you’d assume that would mean they’d lock in the percentages in the various tax brackets. Even with frozen income and sales taxes, governments would still realize increased revenues as wages and prices rise with inflation.

Property taxes work in an entirely different way. (For more on this, see this great Dylan Reid piece at Spacing.) By freezing property taxes, the city has forced itself to make do with the exact same pool of tax revenue as they did last year. Despite, you know, everything costing more than it did last year due to inflation.

They crippled themselves.

link — Comments Off on Toronto Council Curveball: Amendment to budget would retain services
23
Feb 11

Toronto Council Curveball: Amendment to budget would retain services

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/ddale8/status/40436998430920704″]

Fresh from Twitter, today’s special council session regarding the 2011 budget kicked off with a bang as Councillor Gord Perks moved a motion that would see a 3.5 million property tax levy. This would retain services — preventing the proposed cuts to public health, bus routes, etc. — and cost the vast majority of taxpayers less than $10 this year.

Shrewd move. It puts Team Ford in the awkward position of having to argue that $10 (or less) per year is an unfair tax burden. But then this is the administration that’s sympathetic to people who whine about having to pay a nickel for a plastic bag.

You can stream council online or follow the #TOCouncil hashtag on Twitter for updates.

UPDATE: And the motion has failed, 18-27. Breakdown on votes will be very interesting.

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