[URBAN NOTE] "Why Toronto Should Reframe Its Budget Debate"

[rfmcdonald]

I approve of Alex Mazer's guest essay at Torontoist talking about more, and less, productive ways for Torontonians to deal with the upcoming municipal budget.

Imagine you have created a budget for your household. Your domestic partner, who has little patience for financial details, asks about it.

You might reply by explaining how you are planning to spend less on eating out, but more on travel. Or how by buying used clothing instead of new, you can start saving for your kids’ university education. Most likely, you would talk about resource allocation and household priorities.

Here’s what I doubt you’d say: “Our income from my part-time job will increase by 1.85 per cent this year.”

This weirdly precise figure would tell your partner little about where you will actually spend your money—and, more importantly, how your personal finances are likely to affect your family’s life.

Yet this is how the City of Toronto’s budget is framed, and as we prepare for the municipal budget’s public release Tuesday morning, we should change that thinking.

The planned increase in residential property tax revenues (not to be confused with the actual property tax rate) has become the anchor of our city’s budget debate. Should it be two per cent or three per cent? Or 1.75 per cent or 2.25 per cent? This simple percentage figure is often the focus of the mayor’s budget instructions to City staff. It shapes much of the budget reporting and debate at council. And it informs how the public thinks about the budget.