So you’re upset about your taxes going up, and the wasteful spending at City Hall, and you want the next mayor of Canada’s largest city to do something about it? Well then Rob Ford’s your man!
Recently, the Ford campaign published RespectForTaxpayers.com, a list of City Hall programs that were approved or expanded over the most recent term of City Council, which Ford claims are wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars on frivolous and unnecessary spending. Ford vows that when he is mayor, all of these programs will come to an end, saving taxpayers money.
So far, the cumulative total of the wasteful spending Ford claims on his website stands at $215,678,400. As detailed by Simon McNeil in his blog post dissecting Ford’s claims, his claims are dubious at best, and in many cases outright ridiculous. Even so, for the purpose of this post, I’ll use Ford’s numbers.
The budget contained in Toronto’s 2008 financial statements (the most recent I can find on the City website) calls for expenditures of $10.2 billion. If Ford is able to cut 100% of his identified “waste” so far, he will have reduced expenditures by a whopping 2.1%.
However, Ford has also vowed to put an end to the Personal Vehicle Tax and Land Transfer Tax, which despite coming up short of expectations, generated $201 million for the City in 2009, according to this Toronto Star article. That brings Ford’s savings down to under $15 million, roughly 0.144% of the 2008 budget.
Based on 2008 property tax rates, tax on the average $395,460 home (source) comes in at $3,459.97 (rounding to the nearest cent). If 100% of Ford’s savings went into reducing property taxes, the tax savings on the average home would be $4.98. Four dollars and ninety-eight cents. Of course, city finances do NOT work that way, but once again we’ll go with it for now.
According to his Waste Watch, here’s how Rob Ford plans to save you the price of a mediocre latte once a year:
- Chain councillors to restrictive spending policies, so that they cannot freely address the concerns and interests of their constituents. Kyle Rae, councillor for Ward 27, is attending an AIDS Conference in Austria – Ford calls this a waste of time and money.
- Remove indoor plants from City Hall. Ford thinks watering them is wasteful.
- Send your tax dollars to China by outsourcing the design, construction, and maintenance of our new subway vehicles, versus building them in northern Ontario. Ford thinks keeping jobs in Canada and cash in our economy is a waste.
- End two successful and inexpensive treatment programs for Toronto’s homeless. Rather than “waste” $76,000 annually, Ford would toss them into the street to fend for themselves.
- Throw caution to the wind, literally, rather than fund a study on the effect of changing weather patterns to Toronto, to design better infrastructure and be better prepared for storms and other events.
- Halt the progress of the City’s expanding bike lane network. Well, it should come as no surprise that the Etobicoke councillor thinks that making our streets safe for everybody is a waste of money.
- Cut up the City’s credit cards, because an audit found “some abuses” in a staff purchasing program. Only the wealthy should work at City Hall, right Mr. Ford?
All for four dollars and ninety-eight cents.
Please, Toronto, vote for someone with an actual vision for the city, not just someone who is very, very angry. Vote for someone who will make the city a better place for everyone.
Please read Simon McNeil’s Profiles in Profanity, and please read All Fired Up In The Big Smoke. Educate yourself.
