Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s budget cuts will cost Toronto at least $177.65 million this year alone, warns city manager Chris Murray in a new memo to Mayor John Tory and city councillors.The email sent Thursday morning provides an overview of funding changes identified to date, estimated impacts on the city and “anticipated and indirect funding changes that may have future implications for the city and are being monitored by staff.”The estimated pressure on the City of Toronto council-approved 2019 budget, Murray writes, based on the best available information to date, is $177.65 million. He breaks it down as:$24 million from cancellation of planned provincial gas tax funding. $65 million for Toronto Public Health. $84.8 million for children’s services $3.85 million for Toronto Paramedic Services. The impact of the cuts, if Tory’s pressure campaign on Ford fails to convince the premier to abandon them and talk to the city about other ways to help reduce Ontario’s deficit, will be greater in future years because most of the cutbacks in the provincial budget take effect April 1.That means the city is getting reduced funding for nine months of 2019, but will feel the full-year impact of the cuts starting in 2020.Murray, who noted his staff are dealing with the best information available because the province has provided so few details, restated some cuts council already knew, such as the loss of extra gas-tax money that the previous Liberal government had promised Ontario municipalities and which Toronto earmarked for badly needed upgrades and maintenance.The city manager provided some new issues as well, including the April 26 notification from Ontario’s Health Ministry that Toronto’s grant for ambulances will not, unlike prior years, include an increase to compensate for inflationary costs. The $3.85 million reduction from what city council was expecting, and included in its 2019 budget set in April, is equal to a 3. ...
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