All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

What Are We Willing To Pay For?

Posted on December 16, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

At this week’s 2013 final gathering of the tribe, one of the items on city council’s agenda will be the rate supported budget for next year. This is separate from the operating and capital budgets the budget committee has been publicly wrangling with since late-November, covering water, waste and parking. As ‘rate supported’, technically, these items aren’t funded from the tax base but are maintained by users of the services. Pretty much pay as you go and pretty much by everybody living and/or working in this city.

I won’t get into the details because, well, they’re so bo-o-o-o-r-r-r-r-r-r-ing, except to say that this is the model some members of council would like to see spread through more of the city budget. Taxpayers only paying for those services and programs that they use. During the staff presentations at budget committee last week, certain user fees were recommended to be hiked as high as 6% (2.25% inflationary plus 3.75% additional). On Friday on Twitter, The Grid’s Edward Keenan pointed out that the ratio between property taxes and user fees that make up the city’s budget jumped from 2.5:1 in 2000 to 1.2:1 in 2014.

We all know the property tax base is not the sharpest tool to use in generating revenue for governments. Property taxes rarely reflect the reality of the current economic climate nor do they always represent accurately those with the best (and worst) ability to pay. It makes sense for a municipality to try to diversify its portfolio of revenue streams.

And, in some ways, the blunt force of something like a consumption tax which, I’d argue water and waste rates based on usage are – the more you use, the more you pay and vice versa – goes toward modifying behaviour. Who doesn’t want to reduce the amount of water we use or how many landfills we fill? In the long run, such measures will prove to be economically beneficial.

But…But… And here’s the tricky part. Should the onus for such an approach fall disproportionately on those most susceptible to changes in cost? Chances are that if you live someplace with 4 bathrooms (3 of them full) and a extensive sprinkler system in the lawn, you’re going to be less sensitive to increases in water rates than somebody living with their family in 900 square feet and one bathroom. Conservation is simply an economic decision.

We’re also very selective at this point about which users pay more fully for the services and programs they want. You want to use a city run sports field? That’s going to cost you more this year. Drive on the roads? Hell no! We won’t pay!

Next month when council debates the 2014 operating budget we’ll hear much yelling about reducing the Land Transfer Tax. This, we will be told, dampens the market for home buying and selling, although little proof will be offered to back up that claim. Moreover, the LTT is a burden on those desperately struggling to put together the last few thousand dollars in order to purchase their first home and to seniors, ready to sell their family home and downsize into smaller digs.

I’m not insensitive to those arguments but I’ll just say that it is a concern we should extend to other aspects of living in this city. An individual’s ability to pay for a service or program versus the collective good of that service or program. It’s always a delicate balancing act and one that seems to be trending toward a more pay as you go kind of city. Let’s have that discussion and make sure if that’s the direction we decide to go, it’s applied evenly and fairly so that everyone is paying properly for everything the city provides for them.

— monetizingly submitted by Cityslikr

Under The Microscope

Posted on December 10, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Today the city begins the next stage of the 2014 budget with 4 days of program and service reviews. Basically a line by line breakdown of what and how City Hall is spending our money. Our hard-earned tax dollars.

The mayor, in his official capacity as visiting councillor, and his brother, the vice-chair of the budget committee, should both be present if for no other reason than to fully explain how they plan to cut the proposed staff budget in order to deliver on their 1.75% property tax increase (including a .5% for their beloved Scarborough subway). Exactly where is all this gravy that’s been leaking back onto the scene since council stripped the mayor of his power to find efficiencies and respect the taxpayers? Show us your work, gentlemen.

The chances of that happening, of course, are remote. Instead, any appearances the Fords may make will be intermittent at best with periods of heavy grandstanding. $18 million! Surely in a budget of nearly $10 billion we can find .0018 in efficiencies!

No doubt we could but the question this time around should be, should we, and if we do, how be we call them what they really are, cuts.

That’s the reality of even a 2.5% property tax increase with that half percent dedicated to the subway. Another budget below the rate of inflation, so there’s really no new money over all. Just a whole lot of robbing from Peter to pay Paul. For three years now, we’ve been running, grinding really, to a standstill. As this week will show, there really is no more meat to pick from the bones without threatening the vital organs.

Last week, deputant after deputant talked about the inadequacy of the city’s child care and nutritional programs. Our social housing portfolio has shown few signs of improvement. And transit. Well, transit.

It should be clear to anyone that we are not funding our city properly. We cannot, as some have claimed, cut back our way to prosperity. The rollback and freezing of revenues has resulted in reductions of services and programs the city provides. (Ed Keenan shows just a few of the holes Mayor Ford has shot through his laughable 2010 campaign guarantee of no service cuts.)

And hey. If that’s the city you want to live in, where it’s pretty much everybody pay as they go with everything? Have it. Come clean and be up front about it.

I do not want to pay for that.

That should be a campaign platform, frankly.

I’m Not Paying For That.

Actually, that was pretty much what we heard in 2010. I’m not paying for retirement parties, bunny suits, councillor snacks or having plants watered. All stuff that didn’t amount to jack shit except for bad optics. Getting rid of it made no dent in anyone’s tax bills but it sure felt good. We showed those fat cats.

Let’s stop pretending it did anything other than that, however.

We have stalled in our ability to meet the city’s growing needs, both in terms of population and keeping pace with operational costs. Simply put, there are more of us and the cost of providing the services and programs we want has increased. We are not improving the quality of life for the average resident in Toronto. While there are always tough choices that need to be made, proper city building isn’t a zero sum game.

That should be the theme of this week’s budget program review. How we’re making do with less and somehow expecting better. The numbers simply don’t add up. You can’t have what you’re not willing to pay for. The question going forward is what is you’re willing to pay for?

— profligately submitted by Cityslikr

Trapped In An Endless Loop

Posted on July 4, 2013 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

After spending the better part of 13 hours or so in a committee room, I don’t think it unreasonable to expect some sort of return on that investment. A little nugget of wisdom. A soupcon of insight. I’d even settle for just one witty bon mot.

Yesterday’s beyond lengthy Executive Committee delivered on all that and more. Without resorting to any Doug Fordian detached from reality over-statement or hyperbole here but I think I can safely say that, by meeting’s end, I had caught a glimpse into Toronto’s troubled, tortured soul.

Yeah OK. I could still be a little fuzzily delusion. It was a long day.

On the one hand we’re like this place itching to be taken seriously as a world-class city. And world-class cities have subways-subways-subways, ferris wheels, casinos and an airport on the waterfront. But in the same breath, if the debate turns to something like the struggles of BIXI with an analysis of how similar bike-sharing programs are working in places like Paris and New York, the response is always, well, we’re not Paris or New York (or London or Chicago), are we.

Small town minds with big city dreams, as Burt Lancaster might’ve said in some movie from the 1950s. In fact, he probably did and I’m lifting it.

So the sense you get is a dog chasing its own tail, going in circles, believing something will be different this time around. Hours and hours Wednesday were taken up on stuff we’ve been rehashing for years. The island airport. Another report on the possibility of extending a subway further into Scarborough. Repealing a tax instituted in 2008.

Governance of the undead. Issues never die. They just lumber forward in search of brains.

Which is exactly why we’re still talking about a Scarborough subway instead of having one, or an LRT that was good to go five years ago. Volumes have been written about our lack of nerve in building needed transit since about, oh I don’t know, when Bill Davis was premier of the province. Lack of nerve combined with a tightness of wallets might be a fairer assessment of the situation.

We are witnessing that inclination to the extreme currently at City Hall. The Executive Committee, the mayor’s handpicked cabinet of sorts, represents the most radical example of this city’s penchant for both fiscal and policy penury. We got great plans, folks. As long as it doesn’t cost us a dime.

Translation? We’re not going to do anything much other than keep everybody’s taxes detrimentally low.

Many of these guys made their mark railing at any and all the initiatives of the previous administration of David Miller and have essentially spent the better part of the last 3 years ripping them to shreds, regardless of the economic consequences or setbacks. Canines — when not chasing their tails — marking their territory and ruining the carpet in the process. Doesn’t matter to them. They can’t smell anything anyway, having cut off their noses and all that.

But it was interesting to note, that when the subject of reducing the Land Transfer Tax came up deep into the evening, there was far from unanimity in the crowd. Mayor Ford’s Executive Committee hasn’t exactly been a band of brothers for some time now (although it most certainly is a bunch of bros at the moment), and it appears as if it’s not regrouping for him on what was a key election issue back in 2010. He promised to get rid of the LTT and has since scaled back on that, eyeing a gradual elimination, starting with 10% next year.

Not so fast, said some key members of his Executive including, and arguably most vocally, councillors Denzil Minnan-Wong and David Shiner. Councillor Minnan-Wong pointed out that, while understanding the mayor’s ‘enthusiasm’ to start repealing the LTT, it wasn’t a campaign promise he had made. Any loss of revenue from the land transfer tax was probably going to have to be made up with higher property tax increases which the councillor was dead set against.

Councillor Shiner was even more adamant in his opposition. He’d spent much of the meeting thundering about the need to find a way to start building transit. “Subways, subways, subways? Where’s the money, money, money?”

“We cannot any longer sit on our bottoms and do nothing,” Shiner said during the LTT debate.

While the item was eventually passed along to the budget committee for its deliberation, it’s really, really hard to see it with much of a life expectancy.

Of course, 2014 election watchers will see that and begin to worry about how Mayor Ford will happily use the rejection of any sort of reduction of the Land Transfer Tax as a campaign cudgel. Any loss is a win at this point. Over at The Grid yesterday, Edward Keenan scared the bejesus out of everyone with an article mulling over the very real possibility of Mayor Ford’s re-election next year. Nothing seems to dampen the man’s rock solid base with polls having him at exactly the 47% approval rating he won with in 2010.

But I see some real problems brewing for the mayor going forward.

While he most certainly will hold any defeat of his push to reduce the LTT aloft and blame city council for ignoring his mandate and blocking the will of the people, Mayor Ford won’t be able to just paint City Hall with a simple tax-and-spend brushstroke. Last time out, I think fellow conservative travellers like councillors Minnan-Wong and Shiner sat back and let their colleague do his thing in the hopes he’d clear the stink of Millerism out of the place. They’d happily assume positions of power that had been denied them since 2003 or so.

This time out they might not be so quiet.

If conservative councillors like Denzil Minnan-Wong and David Shiner vote against any reduction of the LTT, I imagine they’ll be very forthright explaining to their constituents why. The city can’t afford to lose the revenue especially if it’s actually serious about building public transit. The scenario will be such that conservative councillors in suburban ridings the mayor needs to win will be campaigning against the mayor’s agenda.

Who will Mayor Ford be running against then? Everybody. And that’s a mighty high hill to climb even for an incumbent starting from a solid base of support.

Before embracing what might be a little glimmer of hope, however, it would do well to remember that our city does have a tendency to turn on itself. If history is anything to go by, we could be back having this exact conversation a year, two years, five years, a decade down the road.

— repeatedly submitted by Cityslikr