Time to cut councillors' budget in half

In one week, we’ve had a councillor under fire for charging taxpayers for the furry, costumed friends at his annually subsidized icecapades, and a TTC chairman who asked us to pay for his joyride…but one that certainly wasn’t on the rocket. How nice.

With 44 councillors each owning expense budgets with an annual maximum of $53,100, potentially totalling a cool $2.33-million, who knows what other gems remain uncovered. But one thing is for sure – they exist and they are ridiculous.

Let me first say that I don’t actually have a problem with Councillor Heaps expensing $439 on animal costume rentals. The councillor used taxpayer money to attract his Ward’s residents (children, in particular) to an annual community event. If you feel it is a frivolous event, fair enough. But it certainly isn’t scandalous (Heaps ranks 16th overall in office expenses, so whether there is a systemic frivolity here, that’s another matter).

My main issue with expense items is when there is evidence of deceitful, fraudulent, or selfish behavior that speaks to the integrity of the elected official.

Unfortunately, the answer here is not to focus further on what gets expensed – it’s a tangled, messy web that the Clerk’s office, and skilled journalists, already navigate through as best as possible. Not to mention, the ironically inefficient 66-page document that sets out what can and can’t be expensed leaves much to interpretation. Instead, the answer is to drastically cut the budgets so that councillors no longer have the ability to take these liberties.

To agree with this, you have to first agree that the budgets are set extraordinarily too high. The goal here is not to prevent a councillor from doing valid city business, but rather to ensure it is done appropriately and efficiently. Withiout a doubt in my mind, a smaller budget would result in councillors reducing their self-promoting pamphlets (green movement, anyone?), think twice before making $500 donations to community groups (yes, this is actually allowed), and provide a stark realization that there’ll be a negligible effect on their office’s ability to operate.

The city already cut office expense budgets by a whopping 5%. What I propose is to add a "0" on to that – let’s cut it in half, from $53,100 to $26,550. A full quarter of the councillors (11 in total) operate with budgets below that already, including some of the most respected and accomplished ones in the bunch (the bar is not set high, but still). Should a councillor reach that peak and require further funding, they can apply for access to a reserve managed by the City Clerk’s office, ensuring the expense is deemed pertinent.

It’s time to treat taxpayer money responsibly, and we can start by cutting the expense budgets by $1.16-million. Unless, of course, it really is that easy to "find" $100-million laying around…sigh…

About Tyler Currie

It’s time to become a global city

Tyler Currie.

You’ve heard this debate before: Canada suffers from an inferiority complex in relation to our neighbours to the south. With a tinge of irony, loyal defenders wake from this calmness by arguing vehemently that this isn’t a sense of inferiority, but rather the charm of a confident modesty that doesn’t require chest-thumping.

Regardless of which side you find yourself on, whereas this honourable subtlety may be a defining trait for our nation and an admirable quality in our citizens, it is also a smothering shroud that Toronto limps under while comparable metropolitan cities across the globe attract greater attention…and investors. It is time to emerge from this shadow.

This is not to suggest that we should individually throw on cocky swaggers, or brag loudly about the success of our beloved sports teams (okay, currently a bad example).

It does, however, suggest that our elected politicians walk-the-walk for us. While they should certainly continue to search for efficiencies within the GTA, it is time for a vision that does a better job -- borrow from the best of what other "global" cities do, while also trumpeting Toronto as the city for them to admire, visit and invest. With any luck, it’s a snowball effect that could bear significant fruit.

This thought is not a new one, and I admit the slight paradox between claiming we need to expound our virtues abroad, while applying their virtues here. But the constant punch-to-the-stomach feeling I have had following conversations with citizens from sister metropolitan cities remind me that we have not been effective in either regard.

My career has sometimes found me sympathizing with George Clooney’s character in Up In The Air, which is the full extent you will ever hear me complain about the opportunity to spend time in most of North American and European major metropolitan cities.

Yet, in these travels, I can’t help but notice areas where Toronto could learn, where our politicians/boards could recruit, and where the best unexploited opportunities exist for us. Of course, it is not always apples and apples. Different tax structures, revenue sources, population realities, class differentials, and other incredibly different challenges exist. But while City Hall continues to portray itself as a skit from Royal Canadian Air Farce, there is an opportunity cost that we are all missing.

What we lack, of course, is the mayor and council to pull this off successfully, and that is something I’ll be looking to see in this fall’s candidates. In the coming months, I will share some direct conversations with citizens and elected officials in international cities. A couple recent Star articles have begun this analysis, including one involving a city we could learn a lot from.

Do not get me wrong – there is much that we do right, which is what we should be creatively portraying abroad. However, in terms of further improving our city going forward, if imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery, it may also be the key to a better Toronto.

About Tyler Currie