After months of consideration and debate, my colleagues and I on City Council passed the 2012 budget. It was a challenging process that required an enormous amount of hard work from everyone involved. I believe that this budget successfully ensures our valued services are funded while showing fiscal responsibility. We owe a great deal of thanks to Toronto city staff and the members of the budget committee.

In the end we continued to fund vital grants to seniors and women’s groups, TTC routes, school pools, community centres. It is important to note that the funding to these services accounted for approximately 0.15% of the budget. At the same time, the city will still be putting well over $100 million of the surplus into our capital debt.

This budget marks the first decline in gross expenditures since amalgamation with a $20 million decrease – reaffirming this council’s commitment to building a sustainable, affordable and well-managed city. We limited to the property tax increase to 2.5% which works out to $60 a year for the average homeowner. When taken with last year’s 0% increase, residents will have only seen their property taxes increase by 1.25% annually over the past two years. It is important that we take tax pressure off seniors on fixed incomes who still live in their homes as well as working families.

Ultimately, I believe this budget shows the spirit of compromise that makes Toronto such a great city. We’ve listened to residents from all over the city and responded to their concerns as best as possible while continuing to work towards fiscal sustainability.