"It is altogether stupid"

Before I start, the post title comes from a reply I got from former Special Assistant to Joe Mihevc Anthony Schein when I asked him:

"How is it worthwhile to cut out the VRT and then save $880 000? just making a point, I guess?"


So, Rob Ford's first council and executive committee have been and gone, and it looks like he was serious about his plan to stop the "gravy train."  Council was contentious, long and lacked "gravy", with council voting to stop providing food and beverages at council meetings.  Seriously, if you look at this myopically, great, the city is "cutting waste, I guess," but, is there anybody outside of Rob Ford who really gives a crap about refreshments at council meetings?  How much money could this possibly save the city?  I'm going to guess high at about $200 per council meeting.  Even if council met every single weekday the total cost per year would be $52000, this made up, extremely high cost estimate, would account for .0000052% of the budget.

In other cost saving, gravy train stopping news from council, the executive committee voted to cut councillors discretionary spending from 50000 to 30000, saving the city $880 000.  Bringing estimated savings from Rob Ford to $932 000 or, .0000932% or about 50 cents per voter.  If we get this kind of savings out of council every week, we might all have enough to buy a 24 of Canadian at the end of the year.

The other major issue on the agenda was to scrap the Vehicle Registration Tax.  I already discussed this in a previous post, but, the revenue from the tax has apparently changed.  The original amount the city was going to forego by cancelling the tax was $50 million.  According to the Toronto Sun, that number is closer to $64 million, once you add on refunds for people who prepaid for 2012.  $64 million?  That doesn't make sense does it?  Why would you run a campaign telling Torontonians (but mostly Etobicokeans? and Scarberians) that the city's finances are a mess, and then cut $64 million out of the budget for 2011 and $50 million per year after that?

This is the conversation I'm picturing between budget chief Mike Del Grande and Rob Ford.

Ford: Mike, I'm freezing taxes, you have to find $60 million in the budget to cover that.


Del Grande: Ok, Rob, I'll work on it.  We might have to cut some things.


Ford: No Mike, No cuts, well actually yes, one cut.  We're going to cut that Vehicle Registration Tax, the war on the car is over you know.


Del Grande: so, I've heard.  So, I have to find 124 million now?  Without cuts?  Might not be possible, Rob.


Ford: What if we cut out sandwiches and coffee?  does that do it? 


Del Grande: It might help a bit.  I'll crunch the numbers.  The effect is completely negligible.  Any other ideas?


Ford: Ya, I think we're going to add 100 cops.  That's a good round number.  


Del Grande: That's $15 million more.  I think you might have to go out of pocket on that.  How much is Decco worth?


Ford: Thanks Mike, we'll talk about the subway budget later.


As, I expect it will be for four years, this week in council was painful, if you paid attention to it.  Stick that in your pipe, ya left wing kook.  (couldn't resist)