Darren Calabrese
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Libraries, school-food programs, community grants and daycare are in line for more cash as councillors jostle behind the scenes for a piece of Toronto's surprise $104.82-million surplus ahead of a key budget committee meeting Friday.
Budget Chief Shelley Carroll intends to move or support motions that would increase the Toronto Public Library's budget by $208,000, staving off the closure of 27 libraries five Sundays a year, boost the community grants budget by an additional $900,000 or 2 per cent, and extend by one year an imperilled agreement that covers rent at daycares in public schools.
"I've had lots of calls and e-mails, but happily there's a lot of consensus about where the problems are here because the community has been pretty clear," she said.
But Ms. Carroll warned that she and the city manager have no intention of opening the spending taps more than a drip. "I'm not changing my tack on this budget. This is still a two-year budget in which we want to see permanent reductions," she said.
For instance, Ms. Carroll refused to back away from contracting out two city-owned ski hills or forcing Toronto police to unearth an additional $4.1-million in savings.
Still, Ms. Carroll, just one vote on the budget committee, will face further demands from outside groups and colleagues - some of whom are bitter they were left in the dark about the surprise surplus and Mayor David Miller's plan to allocate it. Mr. Miller pledged it to reducing the proposed residential property-tax hike to 2.9 per cent from 4 per cent and to a $75-million property-tax stabilization fund for 2011, all without consulting the committee.
"I'm just clearly frustrated with the whole thing," said Paul Ainslie, vice-chair of the budget committee.
Everyone wants a share of the windfall. The association that represents the city's non-unionized employees wants a freeze on their salaries lifted. A coalition of arts groups that lobbied for the new billboard tax wants the proceeds dedicated to public art immediately. Joe Mihevc, another member of the budget committee, wants the school-food allocation hiked by more than the 2 per cent expected to be injected in the community grants budget.
"I'm passionate about this one because a student that isn't fed acts up and can't learn," Mr. Mihevc said. He is pushing to add $541,240 to the program, which would cover inflation and expand nutritious meals and snacks to 30 more schools.
School nutrition is included in the Community Partnership and Investment Program or CPIP, which provides grants to hundreds of local organizations working in the arts, theatre and social services. The $45-million CPIP budget was supposed to be flat-lined, but thanks to the surprise surplus there is support on the budget committee for a 2-per-cent increase.
Meanwhile, another budget committee member, Adrian Heaps, wants to use the meeting to ask city staff to investigate long-term property-tax forecasting and moving Toronto's operating budget to the fall, the same time as the capital budget, beginning in 2012. "Every year instead of just guessing whether the property-tax increase will go up or down, we should be able to make a four-year projection," Mr. Heaps said.
The 2010 budget goes to council in April.