With a fare
hike slated to take effect in April, some TTC riders and observers
are taking the opportunity to ask how well the public agency uses
its budget. Of the many organizations funded by the City of Toronto,
it’s the Police Service and the TTC that take up the lion’s share of
tax dollars.
Although the
commission is directly overseen by a board of city councillors,
transit staff must also explain their finances to city’s budget
committee. Don Valley East councillor Shelley Carroll is one of the
politicians who has looked closely at TTC finances leading up to the
recent fare increase decision. To read her views, you can link to
her blog via www.toronto.ca --
look under “Councillors”.
She tells In
Transit that the city has been under a lot of pressure to control
costs, and along with the police the TTC came under a lot of
scrutiny, especially because they were “asking for the biggest
increases”. She adds, “In both cases, we’re still giving them a 7.7
percent increase over their budget (of) the previous year. The goal
for every agency, board and commission this year was two percent.”
Ms. Carroll
acknowledges that the TTC’s needs have jumped dramatically. The
transit agency is experiencing higher ridership, wage costs and
especially increased fuel charges. Ultimately it is the councillors
who sit on the transit board that must approve fare hikes and
financial cuts, and Carroll expressed concern that money-saving
proposals from the budget committee were not acted upon.
She says
councillors on her committee went over the records line by line ,
and TTC staff patiently answered thousands of questions. “But in the
last couple of years in scrutinizing the budget, and knowing that we
have these horrible budget pressures -- and really so do they (the
TTC) -- we’ve suggested these are places that we think you should
reduce. The difficulty is that we can only suggest those things and
ask that the commission do it.”
The TTC’s Vince
Rodo also attended the dozens of budget meetings. As general
manager, he oversees the finance department and is responsible for
explaining the transit agency’s books to the city. He and other
officials responded to councillor queries on the spot or looked into
the implications to return with answers. Of the many proposals for
cost savings, he says “Some of those things ... we agree completely
with, and some things we explain as best we can -- why it will
either work or not work.”
He says “Every
question that the budget committee asked, we answered. Every
suggestion they had, we responded to. Some we acted on, some we
don't think are in the best interest of running the transit. We had
a lot, a lot, of budget meetings, and from my perspective we
responded to the questions that were put to us.”
Councillor
Carroll maintains that there are parts of the organization that
aren’t scrutinized enough for efficiencies. Coming up, should the
TTC operate more like a business, and how well does it respond to
suggestions for cost savings?