Follow along here for live updates as Toronto City Council considers the 2023 budget.
Last Updated Wednesday, February 15, 2023 5:57PM ESTThe budget includes more money for Toronto police and the biggest tax increase since amalgamation. It comes at a time when Toronto is facing a potentially massive $1.56 billion) hole in its budget.The meeting also comes days after Mayor John Tory said he would resign. He has since said that he will delay formally resigning in order to see through the budget process.
Coun. Myers asking about a report that police spent $330,000 on a podcast that only reaches fewer than 100,000 people. Staff respond that the cost of the podcast is in fact spread over four to five years. They say the $48 million increase to the police budget is not for the podcast, but mostly for frontline policing.Council has now moved on to the operating and capital budgets. Councillors asking questions of staff, starting with Coun. Bravo, who is asking about TTC service cuts.
Councillors are peppering staff with questions about how the city is meeting its needs given some of the large holes such as $9.5 billion in state-of-good-repair backlog, $1.3 billion in COVID-19 costs, $230 million in lost development charges, etc. Coun. Lily Cheng says by her calculation all of the shortfall would amount to a 69 per cent property tax increase and the city needs a better plan.Coun. Saxe asks the CFO how much property taxes would have to go up to maintain the same service level as last year on the TTC. CFO Heather Taylor says every percentage point increase in property taxes results in an additional $39 million in revenue.
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