Toronto’s mayor announced a new budget strategy on Thursday, one that demands both the TTC and the Toronto Police Service find a combined $10 million in savings.
John Tory announced the city would be making the rare move of borrowing from itself. The city would temporarily reduce capital contributions from the operating budget by $130 million over the next three years. They will repay that money with interest by finding efficiencies over the next six years and raising property taxes by 1.7 per cent every year until 2018.
The plan indicates that the money would be paid back in full by 2020.
Tory said all in all, the city would have to find a total of $25 million in savings in the 2015 budget to kickstart the process.
The city is dealing with an $86-million shortfall made worse by the fact the province rolled back their social housing funding.
Instead of accepting the offer of a $200-million line of credit from the province, Tory said the city would instead deal with it on its own but would spread the effects of the resulting cutbacks over four years to help minimize the impact.
Under the mayor’s proposed budget plan, the city would in 2015:
- Eliminate five positions in transportation services that haven’t been filled in the last five years but that had money set aside for it in the budget
- Reduce $1.6 million from the social services budget to reflect what Tory described as a smaller case load.
- Adjust the budget to reflect current lower fuel costs with an estimated savings of about $2 million.
- Have both the TTC and the police find $5 million in efficiencies in their respective budgets.
Both TTC CEO Andy Byford and Alok Mukherjee, the Toronto Police Services Board chair are both expected to appear to the budget wrap up on Feb. 20 to give details on the cuts they will be making.
Tory called the plan “creative” and said it was designed to ensure that service delivery would remain untouched by budget constraints.
“We chose neither to gut city services nor to dramatically hike property taxes,” he told a crowd of reporters at city hall Thursday.
His ultimate plan, he said, is to have every city division and agency across Toronto find two per cent in savings for a total of $80 million in savings ahead of the 2016 budget.
“I think this proposed resolution to a problem created elsewhere reflects all three -- competence, common sense and discipline,” he said.
This is Tory’s first budget as the city’s mayor.
“This budget is a creative solution that is both responsible and practical and reflects what fresh eyes can bring to many of the city challenges,” he said.
The budget committee meets tomorrow to debate this latest proposal. One councilor, Gord Perks, has already expressed his doubts, calling Tory’s plan “high risk.”
