Community centres across Toronto will now be closed on Mondays, pickup of yard waste and leaves will be reduced, snow removal services will be cut back and library operating hours will decline.
Those are just some of the city-wide spending cuts being implemented under a plan to trim $34 million from Toronto's 2007 budget.
"The measures taken today are necessary to address the impact of not having the revenues required to provide basic municipal services," City Manager Shirley Hoy told reporters during a noon-hour press conference at Toronto City Hall.
Hoy maintains the answers to the city's current financial crisis lie with the province and with the city's ability to collect new taxes.
"The Province of Ontario should pay the true cost of their programs, the province should resume permanent operating budget support for the TTC and finally, the city must obtain new and diverse sources of revenues," Hoy said, adding that the city faces a $575 million operating budget shortfall for 2008.
Mayor David Miller said the cutbacks are regrettable, but unavoidable due to council's decision last month to defer a vote on the introduction of a new land transfer tax and a vehicle registration fee, which would have resulted in $356 million in new revenues.
"What I asked the city manager to do was to contain costs for this year so that the cuts to the quality of life of Torontonians aren't worse next year," said Miller who commended Hoy for "identifying what is possible and is reasonable."
The mayor continued, saying, "All of it is something I don't think any member of council wishes to do but we face a real choice and it is time for people to understand that you either pay for the quality of life in the city that you want or you get a different quality of life. There is no way to provide a good quality of life without paying for it."
Miller explained that even if councillors approve the two new taxes in October, the service cuts will remain in place.
"If the tax measures aren't passed or if there's not other significant funding like an extremely significant upload, further service reductions or an extremely significant property tax hike, or both, would be necessary next year," said Miller, who admitted that the cuts are taking Toronto in the wrong direction for a growing city in need of new investment.
The service cuts, which do not yet include projected cuts to transit and police services, will reduce the operating budget shortfall by at least $83 million in 2008.
The TTC and the Toronto Police Service have provided preliminary estimates totaling $9 million for 2007, including $6 million in transit cuts and $3 million in police services.
Ward 38 (Scarborough Centre) Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said the TTC will have some tough choices ahead.
"I think it's the tip of the iceberg," De Baeremaeker said of the service reductions proposed to date. "This is nothing. This is peanuts."
The TTC agreed last month to conduct public consultations on cutting service and mothballing the Sheppard subway line.
And De Baeremaeker maintains that if the TTC wants to save money on the operating side the only option is to make substantial service cuts.
"When you look at one bus being driven by one bus driver, if you lay off 500 TTC employees, you're talking about 500 fewer buses or no Sheppard subway and that's where I think we're going," he said. "Forget the fact that we're not going to shovel the end of your driveway or your sidewalk, which I think are horrible things."
The cost-containment measures also include a city-wide hiring freeze, which means that the current 677 vacant positions within the city will not be filled.
Hoy noted there are no layoffs to full-time staff but there is a significant impact to about 3,000 temporary and seasonal staff in parks, forestry and recreation, and in transportation and solid waste.
Hoy said the implementation is in full compliance with the city's collective agreements.
"The fact of the matter is we are now once again putting services and Torontonians in harm's way," Brian Cochrane, president of CUPE Local 416, said, noting that his members were "fearful and anxious" anticipating Friday's announcement.
"We were very optimistic about the future of the City of Toronto once this government got changed. We now see ourselves in a position where a number of our members are adversely affected. I worry about the future. I really think that we are in serious, serious trouble in terms of the quality of life in the city."