Latest Toronto city budget plan to hike property taxes 1.3%

Homeowners in Toronto look set to face a 1.3% property tax increase in 2016 as the city moved one step closer Monday to finalizing the budget.

Toronto city council's budget chief Gary Crawford proposed hisrevised spending plan for 2016. It includes a property tax increase at the rate of inflation but leaves out millionsof dollars worth of initiatives that had either been promised by Mayor John Tory orapproved by council.

Amongtheitemsleftoutofthebudgetarethemayor'spromisedtaskforceonTorontoCommunityHousing, improvements to park facilitiesand bolstering the city's accountability offices.

• Preliminary budget calls for 2.17% property tax increase
• Approved but unfunded: new initiatives missing from budget

Tory "shouldn't have made promises to the people of Toronto if he didn't intend to pay for them," Coun.Gord Perks told reporters at City Hall.

"It's not that we are saying 'no' to a lot of these items, but what we are saying is not this year," Crawford told a news conferenceat City Hall.

"I think the mayor and his staff have done a good job of balancing off the need-to-have withthe want-to-have," Coun.John Campbell told CBC News in an interview.

A 1.3 per centproperty tax increase works out to about $35a year for the average home in the city, with an assessed value at just under $550,000.Homeowners also face hikes in water rates and some solid-waste fees, as well as a 0.6 per centincrease in the form of a new levy dedicated to building theScarborough subway. The subway levy will costs the average homeowner $16thisyear.

The revised budget proposal goes to the city's budget committee next week, and then must also be approved by the city's executive committee and finallythe full city council.

The initial budget proposal put forward in December proposed a2.17% property tax increaseto cover what would have been a $57-million shortfall.

To bring it to balance, the new proposal raids some reserve funds set aside for child care and housing and takes one-time payments from such agencies as the Toronto Parking Authority and the Toronto Port Lands Company.

Meanwhile,the TTC and Toronto Police Service are being asked to trim their budgetswithout reducing service levels by cutting "discretionary expenses."

Thepreliminarybudget left out$67 million in new fundinginitiativesthat council had approved or Tory had promised. The revised plansalvages about 40% of those programs, said Crawford.

Some councillorssay the city has a revenue problem and needs to solve it through other means.

"We can't continue to pretend that the lowest tax rate in the province with no talk of revenue tools is the way we are goingto achieve a city of the future," Coun.Janet Davis told reporters at City Hall.