WorldTimes : Toronto’s Budgeting and Accounting Systems Unbalanced

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Toronto’s Budgeting and Accounting Systems Unbalanced

Having an Operating Budget Surplus of
$ 292 Million coupled with a Capital Deficit of $ 2.4 BILLION should demand that immediate changes are legislatively required to reign in Toronto councillors ability to unnecessarily add new taxes on already overburdened property and business taxpayers.

The reality is that City government and the City of Toronto Act has to be amended in order for this Mayor or any proceeding Mayor to succeed.

Toronto must be direct by the province to ensure that spending for maintaining and protecting the City’s infrastructure and ensuring that services demanded by the citizens of Toronto will be delivered in a sustainable manner.

To do this the province should immediately introduce legislation that legally stipulates and requires that the City of Toronto MUST apply any and all yearly operating surpluses against long term existing debit for capital budgets.

If this had been in place today Toronto would have by now eliminated $1.290 Billion from the current tax payer supported debt of $2.4 Billion dollars.

The future for the City’s budgeting process for all departments, agencies, commissions Boards etc. must be changed to a ZBB from the current outdated historical incremental budgeting system in which the new budget starts with the balance at least equal to the previous year’s total balance or estimate.

The Zero base budgeting (ZBB) process commences with the budget development system in which all departments, services and programs within the budget start with a heading of zero and detects inflated budgets and has a greater political control over executives, managers, services and programs.

It would further assist in channelizing the City’s ample existing tax revenues from low priority to high priority areas.

Councillors’ continued outrageous practice of increasing spending at an average rate of 5.21% annually since 2003 over revenues represents a 1.9% ABOVE INFLATION RATES because of their chronic ingratiating appetite to spend our money.

Each unnecessary 2% increase in tax rates since 2003 has siphoned over $22 MILLION DOLLARS from Toronto Renters, Condo, Single Family Homeowners and Businesses alike.

We must all remember that since amalgamation incumbent councillors have approved spending by 64.23%, introduced unnecessary new taxes when the problem remains one of spending and not revenues at Toronto council.