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Rob Ford's Toronto

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theterribleone said:
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2011/bu/bgrd/backgroundfile-35804.pdf

The current budget.
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in the report, it's been mentioned many times that altogether, salaries and benefits account for nearly 48% of the City’s 2011 BC Recommended Gross Operating Budget, not the 80% figure cited by RF.

yet again, RF is loosy goosy with the facts.

BTW, The Toronto Transit Commission, Toronto Police Service; and Capital and Corporate Financing charges are the main drivers of the increase in gross expenditures; while the decrease was primarily attributed to Toronto Employment and Social Services.
 
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Marko said:
Here's the thing... people make it sound as though all arts, literature, etc... would instantly disappear if the City of Toronto cut back on their subsidy of it, which is absurd. If for a period of time they didn't say, commission any new public sculptures - it doesn't also mean they're going to pull up a flatbed and remove all existing
sculptures from the city. What we see in the city now would remain largely intact - it just wouldn't be added to for a period of time. The vast majority of public art is not actually city funded at all, so if they were to cut away 20% of their funding, it would be equivalent to cutting back 1 or 2% of what may be produced over the period the cutbacks are in effect.

It's like a woman whose husband says "Honey, our company is cutting back and I'm only working 4 days a week for the rest of the year. We have to pay the mortgage and buy food, so to save money for a while, we'll eat out only once a week instead of twice, rent as many movies as we see in the theatre, and um, you can only buy one pair of shoes a month" and her replying "Only eat out once a week? But our friends will think we don't want to spend time with them!!" and even better, "No more shoes!? What am I supposed to do, go to work barefoot!@#?", when she has 2 closets full of shoes. "Come on now, let's not get hysterical, I'm going to be mowing the lawn myself instead of paying the landscapers." he says to her. "Philistine!!" she screams. "Suck it up, princess - I might have to sell my motorcycle!"
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Here's the other side of that arguement:

1)If you cut the funding it becomes that much more difficult to bring it back at a later time
2)Toronto already horribly underfunds the arts per capita compared to so many other cities
3)Toronto is not experiencing a temporary funding shortfall - it has a permanent structural deficit largely of the current administrations own making
 
bobbob911 said:
Here's the other side of that arguement:

1)If you cut the funding it becomes that much more difficult to bring it back at a later time
2)Toronto already horribly underfunds the arts per capita compared to so many other cities
3)Toronto is not experiencing a temporary funding shortfall - it has a permanent structural deficit largely of the current administrations own making
Click to expand...


The later isn't true at all ... not even close ... the car registration tax only brought in a small amount, maybe 10% of the structural deficit ... this thing has always been around ... we've gotten around it using:
1) Reserve funds (which are gone now for the most part):
2) Extra revenue (i.e. less expence) from the previous budget.
3) One time provincial funding ...
4) Offloading some thing to the province.

We really need to do as much of 4) as possible ... and the rest must come from more revenue / or cuts. Pretty simply overall :)
 
taal said:
The later isn't true at all ... not even close ... the car registration tax only brought in a small amount, maybe 10% of the structural deficit ... this thing has always been around ... we've gotten around it using:
1) Reserve funds (which are gone now for the most part):
2) Extra revenue (i.e. less expence) from the previous budget.
3) One time provincial funding ...
4) Offloading some thing to the province.

We really need to do as much of 4) as possible ... and the rest must come from more revenue / or cuts. Pretty simply overall :)
Click to expand...

The failure to raise property taxes last year, coupled with using the surplus to fund that rather than rolling it forward (as well as killing the VRT) is more than half of the shortfall. If you look at past budget negotiations you will also find that the true shortfall is much less than predicted. Combined, you would find that the true deficit this year would have been pretty small - less than $200M, perhaps much less.
 
bobbob911 said:
The failure to raise property taxes last year, coupled with using the surplus to fund that rather than rolling it forward (as well as killing the VRT) is more than half of the shortfall. If you look at past budget negotiations you will also find that the true shortfall is much less than predicted. Combined, you would find that the true deficit this year would have been pretty small - less than $200M, perhaps much less.
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Good point regarding no tax increase last year ... but the extra revenue was a one time thing so that doesn't count, falls under to category 2) above :)

700million or the like is accurate without taking any of the 4 above into account. Your right that when you do, even this year it's closer to 400-500 million. But a lot of this isn't necessarily a yearly thing. If it is the revenue / expense predictions in the budget are fairly off *all the time* that's another problem.

So really I don't mind Ford using the 700 million, though I know it's a scare tactic of course but still it's fairly accurate otherwise.


A good point made in one article a while back.
This has happened every year for a long time now ... the one Ford is tackling isn't even that large compared to some other years. In the end they tend to get it done with very little media coverage, it looks like Ford is going for the long term solution .... which in some ways is a good thing no ? (you can argue the way he'll get to it isn't though).
 
nfitz said:
I've been out of town for a few weeks.

Did I miss anything? Probably not ... it's not like the brother's Ford could make themselves look any more ridiculous than they were.

What's with all the Atwood references ... is Ford driving us to such low-brow literature?
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Yeah, they could. See the links above you. I've never read a Margaret Atwood book either but I sure as hell know who she is and I might actually be able to spot her on the street.
 
taal said:
Good point regarding no tax increase last year ... but the extra revenue was a one time thing so that doesn't count, falls under to category 2) above :)
Click to expand...

Not really - there is always a surplus at the end of the year. Last year's was larger than normal though.

700million or the like is accurate without taking any of the 4 above into account. Your right that when you do, even this year it's closer to 400-500 million. But a lot of this isn't necessarily a yearly thing. If it is the revenue / expense predictions in the budget are fairly off *all the time* that's another problem.
Click to expand...

Depends if you are a Toronto Sun economist - "They're overtaxing us!!" In reality, isnt it better to budget assuming worst (or near worst) case assumptions about growth, population influx etc etc and end up with a surplus at the end of the year, instead of budgetting best case assumptions and end up with a shortfall?

With respect to past provincial top ups, everybody knows this is "wink wink" funding to cover the unfunded provincial downloading from the Harris era - the province cant afford to officially re-assume these responsibilities so the city is stuck with them. True the city has been whining about this for a long time, but it doesnt make it any less true unfortunately.
 
bobbob911 said:
With respect to past provincial top ups, everybody knows this is "wink wink" funding to cover the unfunded provincial downloading from the Harris era
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And this is what really goes unsaid, which is that to the extent that the city has a structural financial problem, it is because a conservative provincial government wrecked the structure. The city has been forced to take care of things previously covered by the province. It's not that the city has been routinely profligate, but rather that the way things had been set up before Harris can't handle the extra downloaded burden.

God knows what things will look like if we end up with Hudak at Queen's Park, and thus conservatives at all three levels of government.
 
Tulse said:
God knows what things will look like if we end up with Hudak at Queen's Park, and thus conservatives at all three levels of government.
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Same thing that usually happens with more right-wing governments. Less $ will lead to more poverty, more homelessness, more crime, more deaths, and yet the rich get richer.
 
Rob Ford musing that there should be advertisements in school gymnasiums.

What he should do is sell advertising space on his suit (he is big enough) and his minivan. He could generate revenue that can cover his salary, thus saving the taxpayers money.
 
taal said:
A good point made in one article a while back.
This has happened every year for a long time now ... the one Ford is tackling isn't even that large compared to some other years. In the end they tend to get it done with very little media coverage, it looks like Ford is going for the long term solution .... which in some ways is a good thing no ? (you can argue the way he'll get to it isn't though).
Click to expand...

Fixing the city's structural deficit requires a long-term multi-year approach that balances efficiencies and cuts with revenue increases and intergovernmental negotiations. Ford had an opportunity to allow time for that necessary process, but instead stacked the deck against 2012. Recall that during last year's budget debate, the Speaker ruled any and all discussion of the 2012 budget out of order. No one was even allowed to talk about it.
 
EMP1729 said:
Rob Ford musing that there should be advertisements in school gymnasiums.

What he should do is sell advertising space on his suit (he is big enough) and his minivan. He could generate revenue that can cover his salary, thus saving the taxpayers money.
Click to expand...

Nothing like having a KFC ad in the gym you're exercising in.
 
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