City Council has voted in favour of doubling the staffing budgets for individual members. It’s a move which appears to eliminate any saving intended by the reduction of Council from 47 members to 25. The vote was 18 to 8 in favour with Ward 15 Councillor Jaye Robinson in opposition but with from Ward 12 Josh Matlow and Ward 14 Kristyn Wong-Tam. New council member Brad Bradford from Beaches Ward 19 also voted in favour. The staff budget per councillor is now $482,000 annually from $241,000. Office budgets for Councillors was also increased, going to $50,000 from $34,000. Mayor John Tory voted in favour of these increases.
JUST A FACT, SAYS MATLOW
“When Premier Doug Ford told the people of Ontario that there would be $25 million in savings to cut council roughly in half it was never true. There was never going to be $25 million in savings and that is just a fact,” Ward 12 Toronto St Paul’s Josh Matlow said during Wednesday’s debate. “What has happened now is that we are going to need more staff to be able to respond to our constituents because we are going to be busier in both having to address the needs and priorities of double the population but also spending more times sitting at these committees.” Some, like Stephen Holyday, Ward 2, felt that Council had missed a chance to see what the real cost of serving constituents might be before simply doubling the budget.
HOE ABOUT 1.5 TIMES?
“I was a little confused when I read the table in this report where it gave us the three options and two of the three options were dividing up the leftover money and all I could think of was the Romans coming in after and dividing the spoils of war amongst the people,” Holyday said during the meeting. “I understand the temperature of Council and think Council is looking for a significant increase in budget. I will submit to this Council that 1.5 times your current office budget is an enormous increase and it allows you to hire one or maybe two additional constituency assistants.” Ward 17 Don Valley North Councillor Shelley Carroll said that doubling the staffing budgets would help to address the range of workloads in different wards with different levels of development. She said that some councillors in large downtown wards will now have 50 or 60 active development applications and will need extra resources to deal with them while Councillors in other wards may be able to get by with less.
