Preville on Politics
The sound of bureaucrats laughing
Posted on July 23, 2007 by Philip Preville
When she met with the media on Friday, City Manager Shirley Hoy, city hall’s top bureaucrat, didn’t mince words about the depth of the city’s financial crisis: even if Queen’s Park agreed to upload the cost of social services tomorrow, she explained, Toronto would still need to raise new revenues of its own. When asked what could possibly have been gained, then, by council’s decision to defer a final vote on the matter, she offered a pregnant pause with a purse-lipped smirk—trying hard to conceal a smile, I thought—before saying, simply, “I can’t speculate.” This was a bureaucrat’s sneaky sense of humour shining through: unable to comment on the ineptitude of her political masters, she let the question speak for itself. There was nothing to be gained by a deferral, and councillors would know that if they’d only been paying attention.
The golden rule of public administration is that bureaucrats never provide elected officials with political advice. In the current crisis at city hall, the rule has played out like so: Hoy and Deputy City Manager/Chief Financial Officer Joseph Pennachetti have been happy to tell council which new revenue tools will be easiest to implement, which will raise the most money, which will cause the fewest administrative hassles, and so on—but they will not advise council on which ones the public will find most palatable. That’s a political problem, which means it’s not their problem.
And once you understand that, then you realize that this June 11 report, prepared by Hoy and Pennachetti, is a real knee-slapper. Pennachetti had just finished chairing four public consultations, at which he had been forced to absorb the wrath of an angry public. The second paragraph of his report plops a very big political problem down in Mayor David Miller’s lap: “there was general opposition [to using any new revenue tools] which stemmed from a lack of trust that the new taxes were justified.” The report doesn’t suggest any measures the mayor might take to address this problem; it just states the problem in black and white before going on to recommend, la-de-da, that council adopt a land-transfer tax and a vehicle-registration tax.
Ergo: Miller and his executive committee either failed to read the report that was prepared for them, or they read it and decided they didn’t care about “a lack of trust that the new taxes were justified.” Either way, it’s not what you’d expect of the man who Thinks Like a Mayor and Talks Like a Neighbour. Today’s news is that the mayor is finally coming around, la-de-da, to this blog’s way of seeing things.
Image of Shirley Hoy from www.toronto.ca
Philip Preville
Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.
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Mark Dowling July 23, 2007 at 11:46 a.m.
"she offered a pregnant pause with a purse-lipped smirk—trying hard to conceal a smile, I thought—before saying, simply, “I can’t speculate.” This was a bureaucrat’s sneaky sense of humour shining through: unable to comment on the ineptitude of her political masters, she let the question speak for itself."
Wow - I never knew I needed another reason to dislike our current City manager, but she's a smartalec too. Oh joy.
This is the City manager who brought a $60 car tax to Executive when a $40 tax was roundly rejected in "consultations".
This is the City manager who steers the Executive away from congestion taxes, and sends Toronto staffers to help the Milan Expo bid. Guess what Milan just introduced - a congestion tax. Hopefully the Torontonians will learn something.
This is a City manager which presides over a markedly dysfunctional Municipal Licencing system, as anyone who has spend five minutes perusing illegalsigns.ca will realise.
This City manager presides over a planning system which seems to do first review on applications about the time it hits OMB (as this blog's writer noted recently).
This is a City manager which has asked for $30m of cuts in 2007 following the failure of the tax vote - yet not a dime of that $30m was ever going to be raised in this fiscal year even if the taxes passed. What's up with that?
This is a City manager which has presided over a drawdown of one billion dollars of reserve funds in the cause of "balanced" budgets.
Ms. Hoy, you have nothing to be smirking about.
Adam July 23, 2007 at 12:45 p.m.
Mark, that's hardly being a smartalec. That's pretty standard for a bureaucrat answering a political question they can't answer but clearly have an opinion on.
As well, you're off the mark on some of your criticisms of Hoy. The amount recommended for vehicle registration is purely political, as is the congestion charge recommendation, in-year budget cuts and bleeding of reserves. I'm not sure about the Milan part but I don't see that as a bad thing, as long as Milan is offering Toronto something of value in return and/or paying the salaries of the Toronto officials. Also, Toronto and Milan are partnered as "Sister Cities." I don't know exactly how that impacted the decision to send staff but the partnership is on a political level.
And I'm not sure I understand your complaint regarding $30 million of in-year cuts. If you mean that because the taxes weren't going to be implemented this year and, thus, the City shouldn't cut from this year's operating budget, you're not understanding the strategy being employed.
The idea is that the $30 million saved in the final quarter of 2007 would be applied to 2008. In the worst case scenario (no new taxes approved in October), this would lessen the number of drastic cuts at one time. In a best case scenario (taxes approved in October), making some hard cuts now will tide the City over until the new tax revenue begins to flow in March without forcing severe interim cuts between January and March.
Mark Dowling July 23, 2007 at 2:02 p.m.
Adam, I'm not sure what you meant by "purely political". Staff made a recommendation of $60 to Executive - did they think that the public said "no vehicle tax because 40's not enough"?
These taxes were brought to Council without firm agreement from Ontario to implement them - there seems to be a turf war between MTO in particular and Finance, the latter issuing "clarifications" just prior to the vote.
Since I posted earlier I found Ms. Hoy's letter to department heads (posted on Torontoist) outlining that we are robbing from '07 to pay for '08 so you're right there.
I don't think there should be cuts but these taxes aren't the way to close the gap. We are $600m in the hole for 2008, these taxes are predicted to raise $360m. We need Ontario to pay its bills in full, after that we can think about its promises to build more transit like the lossmaker Sorbara Line - why should Mel have the only millstone subway?
Ontario relieving Toronto of the downloaded $500 million and rewriting the Health Tax to exclude it from collective agreements (enraging the unions who are currently unburdened by that regressive tax) would close virtually the entire gap.
We need more money for *new* services, raised either progressively and universally or directly targeted to harm reduction.
* Ireland charges $0.30 for plastic bags ringfenced to environmental projects - reducing use by 90%.
* A legal billboard tax should accompany enormous fines on landlords of illegal signs.
* A parking tax would hit 905ers not subject to LTT, motor or property taxes but not transit users who retain a car.
* Development charge deals should be banned - if you want a 50 storey condo, a parkette isn't enough - you pay the full freight. We are paying the price of Lastman's exemptions on Sheppard. In Ireland developers build train stations as a planning condition.
* Garbage should be charged by weight, not volume - Councillor Grimes is already bragging about his trash compactor. The tax should only apply to garbage, recycling and composting staying on property tax - this advantages low-income and senior families as they can defer the property part or at least allow it against Ontario income tax.
These nickels and dimes will help but it won't be until we get PST and/or income tax that true reform, like dealing with the post-amalgamation mess of property tax, can get addressed and projects like Transit City will be financed.
The mistake Toronto has made is that in asking for prior "bail-outs" it did not make full payment priority 1,2,3,4 and 5 and instead accepted one-off payments into general revenue which just made 905ers feel smug about how Toronto "couldn't balance its books".
Miller will go "Plan A didn't work, revert to Plan A" in October, the mushy middle will follow. The 2007 cuts won't be reversed and the flow-through savings will make life easier for Budget Committee. What on earth kind of bill of goods did Richard Florida get sold?
Adam July 23, 2007 at 2:54 p.m.
Mark, you can be sure that all reports that carry that much political weight and that cause as much controversy as the proposition of a tax will go through the Mayor's Office before it hits an agenda. And while technically staff own the recommendations, if the mayor says "recommend $60," Hoy will turn around and do just that. Not because she's spineless but because there was nothing special about $40 either (aside from doing a consultation on that hypothetical number.) Also, remember that in the revenue tools report, it made no bones about the public expressing opposition to the proposed tools and that much of the opposition was based on distrust of the City's leadership.
Regarding the MTO-Finance dispute, I've been told by a member of the City's Budget Committee that the Premier's Office supports collecting the vehicle registration fee for the City so MTO will come on board sooner than later.
Finally, your strategy for negotiating with McGuinty would have put Toronto in the position it's in right now but only a few years earlier and with even less political leverage than what it has today (and I don't think Toronto has all that much leverage today, regardless of the election.) In terms of negotiating with the province, I think Miller's done a pretty admirable job given the cards he's been dealt. Though in the last week or so, his communication strategy hasn't been anything to celebrate.
New blog topic... July 26, 2007 at 4:40 p.m.
What's with the stagnant blog.