Toronto's auditor general needs to take a hard look at the Toronto Transit Commission as a first step to taking control of rising expenditures according to the Toronto Board of Trade.
"The board is calling on council to direct the auditor general to conduct an overall audit of the TTC, so that council and all Torontonians can benefit from an impartial assessment of that institution," said Board of Trade president Carol Wilding at public operating budget hearings Monday, March 1, evening.Wilding was giving the board's annual deputation to Toronto's budget committee - one of nearly 100 deputations from the public and interest groups as Toronto considers its $9.2 billion operating budget.She brought forward the board's critique of Toronto's budget problems - a study conducted on behalf of the board that indicates Toronto's unsustainable budget pressures will lead to a "structural deficit" of $1.2 billion in the next 10 years.The board maintains the city needs to find efficiencies and savings in order to close that gap, far more aggressively than it has done so far.Wilding argued the TTC was the logical place to start."The TTC's spending increased by nine per cent this year," she said. "Our research shows that from 2002 to 2008 the TTC's workforce grew by 12 per cent, while its total kilometres operated grew by only six per cent. We found that, had the TTC's productivity remained at 2003 levels from 2004 to 2008, the TTC would have saved $71 million in 2008."As has become a tradition, Wilding and members of the budget committee sparred over the board's assumptions. The board document, entitled the Growing Chasm, noted that city spending has been increasing by nearly six per cent annually.But as budget committee member Gord Perks pointed out, that spending is gross spending, and encompasses increases in provincial grants for mandated programs, and spending that's supported by fees such as TTC fares.He pointed out the city's net expenditures are only increasing by about three per cent a year - a rate lower than other governments."Whether we talk gross or net, here's the bottom line: a structural deficit," said Wilding. "If you spend more money than you take in, it's a pattern we've seen - it is the growing chasm and as it projects out we have a problem."