Budget 2013

Budget 2013: If you are not worried about cuts this year, think again

If this sounds like good news to you…

  • A $774-million funding gap had been projected for 2012, but…
  • Toronto ran a $188-million surplus for the first six months of this year.
  • The City Planning department alone is under budget by 75%.  The city will end the year with about $115-million more than expected.

 

Think again, because Mayor Ford wants to put a freeze on spending

Less spending with increased revenues is not good fiscal policy.

  • The cost of living increases every year.  When costs rise, a freeze means cuts in services.  It also means no new services.
  • With no spending increases, other services (that we pay for directly) have to bring in revenue.

 

What have Mayor Ford’s budget decisions already cost us?

 

  • Mayor Ford cancelled the Vehicle Registration Tax. That’s $60 million a year less.
  • The city collected $41.7-million more than expected in land transfer tax in the first half of the year.  He still wants to cut it.
  • Mayor Ford put a freeze on property taxes. The usual 3 to 4% increase would have cost homeowners $80 to $90 a year. A zero per cent increase in 2010 means we lost $140 million in our city budget.
  • This year he wants a 1.75 per cent increase on property taxes.  Will this insufficient increase cause another funding crisis and more cuts?

 

A three per cent property tax increase would eliminate the need for major cuts.

 

Who really pays?

  • People who will earn less because their wages are frozen are the ones who will pay more for fewer services.
  • There will be more fees for services.
  • Large businesses get property tax breaks.  This means less revenue for the City.
  • While property owners saved money with the tax freeze, it cost people who use public services.   Last year, TTC passes increased to $120 a month.

So on the one hand…

 

They cut the vehicle registration tax, but increased TTC fares.

They froze property taxes and want to cut the land transfer tax, but want to sell off TCHC units.

They fund police, but gut social programs.

 

 

There was no gravy, but we still lost services

 

Last year, committed residents stopped a lot of proposed service cuts, but we still lost services, including TTC bus routes.  Spending in Toronto increased by only 3 to 4 per cent over the last decade.  But we’re growing.  More people means we need more services.

 

Let’s look at our city’s needs

 

Transit

If you think TTC is bad now, just wait

Toronto Environment Alliance gave the TTC a failing grade: https://www.torontoenvironment.org/.

  • Their report card says TTC is not building a public transit system that properly serves the needs of transit users.  Why?  Because there is not enough investment in maintaining and improving existing public transit services.
  • There will be a five cent increase in January.
  • More price jumps are scheduled for the next three years.
  • Toronto transit users already pay some of the highest fares on the planet, higher than New York City, London and Tokyo whose governments invest more in their transit systems.
  • A zero-per cent increase in department funding includes the TTC.
  • We lost service on some heavily travelled routes and face serious service reductions on others.
  • What will happen to dialysis patients who almost lost their Wheel-Trans service last year?

The mayor wants new citizen transit commissioners to replace the current councillor commissioners.  Will his choices include people who support his anti-transit agenda?

Public consultations in how to fund TTC reveal…

Housing

If you think housing is a problem now, just wait

  • There are at least 70,000 people currently on the waiting list for subsidized housing.
  • Affordable housing is in crisis.
  • Mayor Ford wants to sell off 619 Toronto Community Housing (TCHC) homes, many of which provide accessible housing for people with disabilities, some of Toronto’s most vulnerable residents.
  • Selling off’s single-family homes is the wrong way to address the agency’s massive repair backlog.
  • Councillor Ana Bailão recommended that only 55 of the scattered houses be sold. In October, Council executive endorsed the report retaining 564 of the homes as affordable housing, selling only those that are vacant, in bad repair, or worth more than $600,000.

The federal and provincial governments have to be pressured to provide long-term, sustainable funding for affordable housing.

  • Bailão is calling for a “Campaign for Social Housing” aimed at convincing them to come to the table with more money for affordable housing in Toronto.

 

  • The Ontario Works (OW) program that lets landlords know their rent cheques would be paid directly from Ontario Works will be cut.
  • The Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB) fund will be cut at the end of 2012.
    • emergency allowance, enabling homeless people to move into an apartment.
    • helps low-income tenants who can’t pay their utility bill
    • helps people facing eviction pay their rent arrears

Taking away a program that costs very little compared to the overall costs of homelessness does not make financial sense. When the Start-Up Fund is gone, the costs of homelessness will increase even more.

 

 

 

Youth violence and policing

If you think youth violence is a problem now, just wait

The roots of youth violence are no mystery.  They are based in poverty and racism.  The Roots of Violence report came out in 2008 and has been ignored ever since: https://www.provincialadvocate.on.ca/documents/en/RootsofYouthViolence_volume1.pdfyouth

 

Erosion of public services

If you think privatization is the way to go, think again

There is an ongoing attack on collective bargaining at all three levels of government.  Decent salaries, benefits and pensions are good for the economy.  People with money put it into the economy.  People who can’t, need taxpayers’ support.

  • The city still wants to privatize city cleaning staff although they lost the initial battle.
  • They privatized garbage west of Yonge.  Those workers are not unionized yet.
  • They want to privatize TTC maintenance.  TTC workers are up in arms.

 

Privatization means lower wages and fewer benefits for workers.

Paying less is not always better for the taxpayer. Other comparable cities that privatized services often ended up paying more for them in the long run.

A stable, fairly paid work force means better, consistent city services.

  • Contracting out pushes wages down and increases job insecurity.
  • The complaint heard about union wages is: “why should they get that?” Maybe the question should be: “Why don’t we all have that?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Picture

Austerity budgets

The problem is not the lack of money: it’s a lack of a willingness to spend it on services.  None of the three levels of governments sees services as a priority.  Decreasing taxes gains votes but lowers revenues; lower revenues leads to cuts.  This is the austerity agenda.

Federally, Prime Minister Harper has decreased access to old age security, cut taxes to the largest corporations and wealthiest sectors of society and has proposed privatized prisons.

Provincially, Dalton McGuinty is attacking the right to free collective bargaining and funding for our services.

Mayor Ford’s agenda is the local example of the war on poor and working people.

 

Without secure jobs, everybody suffers

  • In Canada, only about 60 per cent of Canadians are certain where they’ll be working a year from now.
  • For half of our temporary workers, temporary employment is a disaster.  These workers are a commodity. You bring them in when you need them; get rid of them when you don’t.
  • For these workers, the stress results in health problems, like trouble sleeping, fatigue, and mental health problems.

 

 

 

 

 

Toronto has the highest food bank use it has seen in years.  Is this the kind of city we want to live in?

Do food, accessible education, quality healthcare, sick days and pensions sound like gravy to you?

We need to fight for quality of life for all.  We need more services, not fewer.

For more information, see:

https://www.socialplanningtoronto.org/

https://www.spacingtoronto.ca/author/john/

Highest food bank use in years: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/food-bank-usage-soars-study-shows/article4552690/

If they think they can get away with this, think again.  Here’s what we can do:

 

 

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