While the entire city has been distracted by the giant blowhard on the screen, the man behind the curtain has accomplished some impressive wizardry. On the labour file, Ford pulled off a previously inconceivable trifecta: he got the city’s largest union locals to sign collective agreements on his terms and outsourced waste collection west of Yonge—all while avoiding any work stoppages. Compare that record with that of David Miller, under whose watch the union’s ranks and paycheques swelled and they still saw fit to wage a strike action that left the city reeking in its own filth.
Labour costs were the main reason that, during Miller’s seven years at the helm, the city’s annual operating budget grew by roughly six per cent per year. Only two years into Ford’s tenure, expenditures have essentially flatlined, from $9.405 billion last year to $9.432 billion this year. Ford’s detractors like to say he promised to stop the gravy, then found none. It turned out that the gravy didn’t flow in rushing brown-water rapids, but in trickles through every crack in the organization. Ford has spackled many of them shut. For example, he eliminated a “running lunch” program—code for a 30-minute paid lunch—in the vehicle maintenance department, which will save the city $391,000. He merged the shop that makes road signs with Transportation Services (why were they ever apart?), saving $110,000. At Fairview Library, an automated book sorter will save $160,000. It all adds up.
The entire budget process has been opened up for the better. Torontonians learned back on November 29 that their annual tax bill would rise by 1.95 per cent (later revised to two per cent), but the real story that day wasn't the size of the increase. It was the timing of the announcement. During Miller’s tenure, the annual tax increase, along with every other detail of the municipal budget, was kept under wraps until February. It’s a crucial difference in management style. Miller waited so he would know exactly how much money he had left over from the previous year. Ford doesn't want to know, because he believes not knowing will force the city to spend more cautiously.
So far, he’s been right. The city no longer needs to use its own prior-year surplus to balance next year’s budget. The 2012 surplus chimed in at $232 million, and instead of desperately shovelling it down the hole of the 2013 shortfall, council used it to increase funding for arts organizations and other programs.
Council also earmarked more than $100 million of the surplus to kickstart repairs to the Gardiner Expressway. Were it not for the Ford administration’s sound budget practices, we’d be paying for the Gardiner by delaying repairs to other things. Back in November, Olivia Chow, the MP for Trinity-Spadina, called upon Ottawa to pick up part of the expressway’s repair bill. Does anyone really want a return to the days when the city cried poor and begged others for money? We tried that for more than a decade, and all we have to show for it is decrepit infrastructure. In fiscal matters at least, Rob Ford has given Toronto its self-respect back.
