The Toronto Star today reports comments former mayor Mel Lastman made this week concerning the fiscal crisis facing Toronto and its councillors. As usual, with Mel, amidst the bluster was a lot of common sense advice which the Toronto cognoscenti will linger as they did during his 6-year term as mayor.
Mel’s first-up suggestion was that councillors roll-back the 9% salary increase they gave themselves, along with approvals to spend millions renovating their offices and city hall square. Mel gets it – it’s not the money that will be saved (which is not that significant in the total city budget) but the message it will send to city residents about a willingness to make personal sacrifices as well as reduce services to others. Mel also notes the ludicrousness of the plan to provide all city residents with new garbage bins in an ill conceived scheme to reduce waste. Save the money for the bins and charge a per-bag fee as other jurisdictions have done. Home owners will gain flexibility (the city wants them to predict how much garbage they will produce each and every week for years to come) and the city will get the revenue from heavy users of the garbage service. The need to contract-out services has been obvious for years, but the current council, indebted to city unions, refuses to consider it. The transit commission has thousands more employees than if did a couple of decades ago when it was carrying more riders. The only reasonable explanation is union featherbedding. The fact that city employees salary and wage increase far surpass inflation at the same time as productivity is dropping should help councillors understand there is a problem and that it’s not the fault of the federal or provincial government.
While I have no desire to see Mel back in the mayor’s office – he was way too wingy by the end of this second term – the current incumbent and his cronies would do well to heed his common sense advice and approach to running the city.
Mel’s first-up suggestion was that councillors roll-back the 9% salary increase they gave themselves, along with approvals to spend millions renovating their offices and city hall square. Mel gets it – it’s not the money that will be saved (which is not that significant in the total city budget) but the message it will send to city residents about a willingness to make personal sacrifices as well as reduce services to others. Mel also notes the ludicrousness of the plan to provide all city residents with new garbage bins in an ill conceived scheme to reduce waste. Save the money for the bins and charge a per-bag fee as other jurisdictions have done. Home owners will gain flexibility (the city wants them to predict how much garbage they will produce each and every week for years to come) and the city will get the revenue from heavy users of the garbage service. The need to contract-out services has been obvious for years, but the current council, indebted to city unions, refuses to consider it. The transit commission has thousands more employees than if did a couple of decades ago when it was carrying more riders. The only reasonable explanation is union featherbedding. The fact that city employees salary and wage increase far surpass inflation at the same time as productivity is dropping should help councillors understand there is a problem and that it’s not the fault of the federal or provincial government.
While I have no desire to see Mel back in the mayor’s office – he was way too wingy by the end of this second term – the current incumbent and his cronies would do well to heed his common sense advice and approach to running the city.
