Toronto council looking at a typical rate-supported budget for 2022

Thestar.com
Nov. 9, 2021
David Nickle

The global COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on Toronto’s rate-funded services in 2021 -- hitting everything from garbage collection and disposal, to water revenue and even business at the Toronto Parking Authority.

But in spite of the atypical year in 2021, Toronto residents will be seeing typical increases in the rates they pay for garbage collection, water and parking in 2022.

On Nov. 3, Toronto’s budget committee got its first look at the proposed budgets for the three divisions -- Toronto Water, Solid Waste Management Services and the Toronto Parking Authority.

Water rates will increase by three per cent -- costing the average household $29 more for the year. Fees for garbage collection will also increase by three per cent -- which will impact homeowners to varying degrees, depending on the amount of household garbage they dispose of each week.

And the Toronto Parking Authority is promising to freeze its rates at 2021 levels, to try to encourage users to return to its facilities, after a year in which stay-at-home orders and the shutdown of many workplaces kept many of the authority’s 58,000 on-and-off-street parking spaces empty.

According to TPA’s president Scott Collier, the pandemic’s second year has so far been the worst in the authority’s 70-year history.

“By any measure this has been the most difficult year we’ve had in 70 years,” Collier told the committee. “For the first time in our history we’ve lost money. But we do believe with 100 per cent conviction that we’re going to have a much better year in 2022.”

Collier said the authority’s projecting a return to 72 per cent of pre-pandemic business -- in part facilitated by freezing parking rates for 2022 at 2021 levels.

Toronto Water is also dealing with a reduction in demand for its services. Toronto Water’s general manager Lou Di Gironimo told the committee that the COVID-19 lockdowns meant the city’s industrial users had been using less water than before, cutting revenue.

“Water production was impacted by COVID,” he said, noting revenue was impacted by a wetter than average summer.

“Last year’s (2020s) hot and dry summer gave us a bump in consumption,” he said.

In total, the drop in consumption of water meant a drop in revenues of $13.7 million in 2021 -- which Di Gironimo said was likely to be a one-time drop in revenue as the city’s industrial economy comes back online in 2022.

In the city’s Solid Waste division, COVID-19 has a marginal impact on the budget, projecting an additional $900,500 expenditure -- mostly coming from a loss in paying customers at the city’s transfer stations, but also to cover the purchase of personal protective equipment and additional pickups from long-term care homes.

But the division will likely be seeing continued demand to collect litter and garbage from city parks, many of which have seen dramatically increased use by residents during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Matt Keliher, Toronto’s general manager of Solid Waste Services, said the department has the capacity to meet that demand.

“We have the operational flexibility to pick up at parks when required,” he said. “Part of the learning from COVID-19 is that there’s more use in these parks, and we’ve ensured that these heavily used parks can be serviced more frequently.”

The three budgets will be back at budget committee on Nov. 19 for public deputations, and then debated at the city’s executive committee Dec. 7 before Toronto council decides on the matter Dec. 15.

The city’s operating and capital budgets, funded by property tax, will be considered by the budget committee in January 2022.