rbt
Senior Member
Most cities set up (or start to set up) reserve funds when they decide to have a large project (such as streetcars and new subway cars). But not David Miller. Toronto had (and I think still has) one of the lowest reverse funds per capita in the GTA.
http://www.toronto.ca/budget2011/2011_budget_summary/pdf/fcp/reserves.pdf
Basically, David Miller was a good politician. Promised a lot and then was able to high tail it out of the city before he had to pay for his promises.
So, yes. Thank David Miller for signing the contract. But Rob Ford (and Rob Ford's successor) are left with these huge captial expeneses and no plan given to them by David Miller to pay for it (Toronto's portion that is).
(personally I think that the politician who promises the expenditure should have a plan to actually pay for it...via these reserve funds or increased reserve funds)
While the reserve fund was low the Land Transfer Tax more than made up for that gap making it a little unfair to say Miller didn't leave a plan to pay for it. In fact, Miller left things in good enough shape that Ford used the surpluses to hold off an inflationary tax increase (~2.5% real reduction relative to expenses).
Miller wasn't wonderful financially, but Ford took a workable situation and put a knife through it by eliminating around $50m/year in revenue. $1.5B over 30 years would have covered much of the Miller related debt.
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