Toronto budget chief echoes Rob Ford and suggests that city has too many managers

Gary Crawford implies that money could be saved and things could be more efficient.

Thestar.com
Jan. 23, 2017
By Betsy Powell

Taking a page from the late Rob Ford’s playbook, budget chief Gary Crawford suggested Monday the city could be run more efficiently - and cheaply - with fewer managers.

“The management or middle management ranks could potentially be bloated. We want to look at how do we reduce that properly,” Crawford said Monday a day before Tuesday’s wrap-up budget meeting.

He acknowledged the plan - which still requires council approval - does nothing to address the $91 million shortfall in the 2017 budget. The budget committee will finalize those “options” Tuesday and forward them to the executive committee and then council for final approval next month.

But Crawford said it’s never too soon to look for future savings, which is why he supports doubling the auditor general’s budget to $9.8 million by 2020, starting with an extra $1 million in 2017, so there can be more audits focusing on management layers. As of December, there were 2,686 directors, managers and supervisors in city agencies, boards or commissions overseeing 33,493 Toronto Public Service employees.

Mayor John Tory, in California on a film and TV business mission, released a statement backing the plan. “We need to look every day for opportunities to modernize city government so we can use available funds on the services and projects that really count.”

Councillor Gord Perks dismissed the announcement as “spin and noise.”

“We are weeks away from approving the third budget in this administration and all they can do is come out and say ‘well we’re going to look for across-the-board savings,’ ” Perks said.

“This seems to be their answer to every single problem, it’s what they do to avoid setting priorities, it’s what they do to avoid solving the problems with housing . . . child care and transit.”

Adding another layer of scrutiny is pointless, added Perks, noting every city budget is already exhaustively reviewed.

Heather Nicolson-Morrison, executive director of COTAPSA, the organization representing non-union city employees, told the budget committee earlier this month that there is a “misguided belief that ‘yet to be found’ service efficiencies will solve our long-term fiscal problems.”

She noted this year’s budget already proposes $10 million in service reductions and eliminating 400 positions. “How can this strategy not affect the delivery of current services let alone meet future service demands, particularly from those people n the most need.” Council should consider new revenue sources, she said.

Three years ago this month, then-mayor Ford made city managers one of his targets as part of his campaign to end the “gravy” train at city hall.

Yet a 2013 internal consultants’ study found Toronto had an “exemplary” ratio of one manger to 11.3 workers, compared to Chicago’s ratio of one manager to 7.1 workers. The report said deleting manager positions would harm the city’s ability to effectively deliver services to the public.

In 2011, after an exhaustive review of city services, KPMG consultants produced a long list of service cuts, but identified few easy savings. Council ended up rejecting proposed cuts.

But Councillor Justin Di Ciano, who sits on the budget committee, said several auditor general reports have identified savings.

They include a report that found waste in cleaning services, abuse of drug claims by city workers and deficiencies in the city’s tendering process and management of long-term disability costs.