The City of Toronto may need to raise property taxes by up to two and a half per cent in 2012, according to Mayor Rob Ford.

Ford, who campaigned on a zero tax increase agenda, made the comments to reporters gathered at City Hall Wednesday, saying the hike could be necessary to help make up for a $774 million budget shortfall.

"I am going to clean up the mess that we inherited from the previous administration and get our fiscal house in order and at the very most we may need to increase property taxes by two to two and a half per cent to do that," he said.

Poll shows Ford's support slipping

The admission comes on an already tough day for the mayor.

On Wednesday morning a Forum Research survey showed the already grueling city budget process may be starting to chip away at Ford's popularity.

The telephone survey of 1,046 residents conducted Monday night pegs the mayor's support at 42 per cent. That is down considerably from the 57 per cent support he enjoyed on June 1 and the 60 per cent support he enjoyed in February.

"The honeymoon is over that's for sure," Lorne Bozinoff, president of Fourm Research, told CP24. "To go from 57 per cent in June to 42 per cent now is a pretty big drop."

The survey was completed following the release of a list of proposed budget cuts by city manger Joe Pennachetti Monday.

The cuts were taken from a report prepared by KPMG and include everything from cutting bus routes to closing library branches and selling the Toronto Zoo.

Mayor Rob Ford has yet to publically support or denounce any of the recommendations, but those polled were quick to voice their displeasure.

The idea of cutting late night TTC buses in some neighborhoods drew the most opposition with 88 per cent in the city's downtown core opposed. Pennachetti's recommendation to cut 2,000 subsidized child care spaces also proved unpopular with 76 per cent of respondents expressing their displeasure.

Some of the other recommendations were more acceptable to the masses, however.

Only 61 per cent opposed selling three city-owned theatres as well as TTC parking lots while sixty six per cent opposed selling Riverdale Farm and two city-owned zoos at High Park and Centre Island.

Bozinoff said Ford's slipping popularity may be more tied to how he is selling the idea of budget cuts to taxpayers than it is to the cuts themselves.

"I don't think people exactly understand what the aleternaties are and they need to be laid out," he said. "The mayor has to do a much better job of selling what would happen if cutbacks don't go ahead and then maybe people will say yeah 'I can see why we don't want that to happen' and change their minds."

The poll found that Ford continues to be more popular in his longtime home of Etobicoke-York, but not as much as he once was.

Fifty per cent of respondents there said they approved of the job he is doing, down from 58 per cent in June.

Only 30 per cent of respondents in the downtown core approve of the job Ford is doing.

The telephone poll is considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.