[URBAN NOTE] "Andy Byford: TTC budget ‘not sustainable’"

[rfmcdonald]

In question-and-answer format, Ben Spurr at the Toronto Star looks at the inevitable budget catastrophe looming in the near future for the TTC.

Has the TTC met Mayor John Tory and city council’s request to cut its net operating budget by 2.6 per cent?

No. Although this summer Tory threatened to call in a task force to comb the TTC’s books for savings, officials at the transit agency and in mayor’s office privately conceded months ago that the TTC wouldn’t be able to meet the 2.6-per-cent target without politically unpalatable service cuts.

That’s because reducing its operating budget would have required the TTC to absorb more than $200 million in additional costs it’s facing next year, including mandatory expenditures, labour outlays written into the agency’s collective agreement, and the opening of the Spadina subway extension in late 2017.

To reduce its financial pressure the transit agency found about $137 million in savings and new revenue next year, including savings on items like overtime and employee health benefits, and a 10-cent fare increase that will raise an estimated $28.7 million.

In addition, the TTC employed one-time “bridging” strategies like exhausting a $14.4-million reserve fund, saving on the delayed implementation of the Presto system, and a $5-million unallocated cut the source of which has yet to be identified.

In an interview, Byford said that the agency had “preformed a minor miracle” to reduce its shortfall, but warned that the one-time strategies “are not sustainable.”

“We have turned over every stone. Just about all discretionary spending has been eliminated. We’re scraping the barrel,” he said.