I was furiously slamming my head in the door this afternoon after hearing the fair haired mayor threatening yet another tax increase next year.

So I decided to look into the way our city has been run fiscally over the past five years (my suspicion was - not well). The results were fascinating. For anyone interested in the raw data it can be found in a City of Toronto document here http://www.toronto.ca/budget2007/pdf/2007far_stat.pdf - that's the beauty of democracy, the ugly truth is hidden in plain site.

I've crunched the numbers as percentages, something very useful for comparison purposes and something the original document does not do (for obvious reasons). There is no other way to say this except that our city is being terribly mismanaged from a financial point of view. Here are some of the highlights (low lights?):

Rate of inflation Canada 2003 - 2007 - has averaged around 2.4% a year (Stats Can).

Population increase City of Toronto - + 3.2%
# Full time City of Toronto employees - +5.2%
Total assessment increase - +24%
Increase in net long term debt - +47%
Interest charges for long term debt - + 31%
Tax revenue - +13%
Transfers from other levels of Gov. - +16%
Total government spending - + 23%
Revenue from residential and commercial property tax - +12%
Total Revenue - +15%
Salaries, wages and benefits - + 20%
Material expenditures - - 83% (yes that's a decrease of 83%)
Expenditures on contracts - +25%
Interest on long term debt - + 15%

Ok so to sum up: inflation has increased by a little over 10% in this 5 year period. The assessment base has increased by 24% (reflecting a booming real estate market), but on top of the assessment increase the government has increased property taxes by 12%. All of this while piling on long term debt to the tune of 47 %. Despite the bellyaching of mayor Miller about other levels of government not treating Toronto fairly we've seen transfers from them up 16%. The number of full time municipal employees is expanding faster than the population of the city by 2%. And it's a good time to be a municipal employee because you will have seen your wages and compensation rise by 20% at a time that inflation has only added 10% to the cost of living. Look at the increase on interest charges on long term debt + 31%.

Can anybody pretend this city is being well run or that this is sustainable. These figures only go to 2007, so we haven't seen the increase in revenue resulting from new taxes on land transfer,plate renewal, etc. And on top of this the Mayor says "More sir?". If this socialist horde can manage to screw things up this badly during economic boom times, god help us when things slow down.