Toronto's new budget with a 9.5% tax break will be discussed today

Toronto councilors will meet today to discuss social programs and a housing-based budget, while trying to close a $1.8 billion budget deficit in part by levying a 9.5 percent tax on homeowners — the highest property tax increase since amalgamation.

The budget — the first proposed by Mayor Olivia Chow — freezes TTC fares, increases library spending and includes money for affordable housing.

While the mayor has tried to cut budget increases for Toronto police, he told council Tuesday he supports a proposal for a full $20 million boost to the force that the Toronto Police Services Board recommended in December. He said his support for full growth recovery shows that other levels of government are helping Toronto with its unique policing needs, though he has not yet said how much they will do.

Shortly after Wednesday's meeting, councilors were asked questions about the police budget when a protester in the gallery was escorted out of the chamber after disrupting the meeting by calling for the police to be defunded and disbanded.

Ahead of the budget, some campaigners said they wanted less money for the police, which they argued had been underfunded for decades, with increases often outpacing inflation.

Although the proposed budget would ask residents to pay more, Chow said the increase would amount to less than a dollar a day for the average household. Staff recommended a nine percent increase in addition to a 1.5 percent increase in the urban development fund. After budget consultations, Chow revised the increase proposed by staff to eight percent, bringing the total increase to 9.5 percent.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting, he reiterated that he inherited a financial mass with a budget deficit of $1.8 billion.

Chow said he was able to secure money from other levels of government to help close the pothole, including the provincial loading of the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, and hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government. assistance to asylum seekers and asylum seekers. However, he said it was still not enough.

“Even with our hard work, we need to raise revenue to improve the city's essential services,” Chow said.

He noted that the property tax for multi-apartment buildings should be increased to 3.75 percent, and the landlords should not suffer.

Still, he said, if people want to see the kind of city they voted for, an increase is needed.

“People voted me to change course to fix those potholes, invest in public transportation and housing to rebuild the city,” Chow said. “We can't do it without paying. This doesn't work. This is magical thinking. This doesn't work. We've been doing this for a while.”

Still, he vowed the city would monitor its progress to make sure taxpayers get what they paid for.

“When you go out and buy something, you get something back. When you pay for a service, you want to see the service, you want the service, you want good service,” Chow said. “When people are asked to pay an extra $1 in property taxes, yes, they want to see results. That's why we're going to monitor our service levels. We're going to set targets and timelines with specific metrics that we can report to. It's the least we can do. Because Torontonians are worth it.”

While Chow has scrapped the police budget, it remains to be seen if other items left out of the budget could be saved, notably a wind-plow program that would help residents clear snow from sidewalks with city plows. Several councilors said the program allows seniors to stay in their homes and said they would fight to keep it.