You are not going to like this column.

It juxtaposes Toronto’s low taxes with high salaries and budget allocations for police, scoffs at the mayor’s bid to reintroduce photo radar (as if police costs are high because cops are supervising traffic) and listens to civic workers who watch politicians, managers and police get salary hikes while contract asks from workers are disparaged as unaffordable.

If our civic workers — the ones now in a work-to-rule phase to back up contract talks — have it good, as our politicos say they do, they should have it good.

They work for a city whose mayor actively runs interference so that police can grease their contract and top up spending.

They work for a city that has the lowest tax rates in the region.

They work for a city which gives free transit rides to children under 12 (Yeah!) and jacks up transit fares again, and still, transit ridership bounces along.

They work for political bosses who are giving themselves a salary hike of about two per cent this year, to $108,000. Ten years ago they earned $87,214. Their salary increased every year except 2011, when they faced labour action like they do today.

Yet the same politicians say we can’t afford it.

The taxpayer with a conscience is always in a conflicted position around now. My neighbours pay twice the listed average tax bill. They aren’t begging to pay more. But they do want to treat workers fairly. They don’t want to be taken for suckers — not even by police. And they certainly don’t want their pockets picked by photo radar under the guise of reducing policing costs.

For a house assessed at $549,586, the average property tax bill is $2,748; add $1,033 for education.

At 1.3 per cent, Toronto’s tax hike is the lowest in the region — Hamilton, Peel and Durham hovering around 2 per cent, while Waterloo is at 3 per cent and Sudbury hits 3.9 per cent.

Among GTA municipalities, Toronto’s tax rates are lowest — nearly half the rate in Oshawa and Hamilton, a poll of said municipalities showed last year.

In real dollars, the average municipal property tax bill across the GTA and Hamilton was $4,182. The high is in King Township at $6,100. The low, at $3,170 was Toronto.

So, maybe Toronto is overrun with people who are house rich but income poor — kids who have inherited their parents’ million-dollar bungalow or widows holding down that coveted detached two-storey on a survivor pension?

Even here, Torontonians do well, though not best. Toronto’s property taxes are on average 3.3 per cent of household income. The average for the region is 3.7 per cent — ranging from the high of 4.7 per cent in Brampton to a low of 2.7 per cent in Milton.

But Toronto has the land-transfer tax and pays for waste separate from the tax bill, you say. Yes, but even counting those taxes, the city is fourth lowest ($3,625) on the list of 25 area municipalities, where Richmond Hill residents pay $4,900 and Georgina taxpayers cough up $3,548. The average is $4,200.

Of the $10.06 billion of spending this year, nearly $4 billion is from property taxes, $2 billion from provincial grants, half a billion from user fees, a windfall of $532 million from the land-transfer tax and $433 million from reserve funds. Plus $1.25 billion in TTC revenues. This doesn’t even count assessment growth, interest, dividends, investments, fines and traffic tickets and other contributions totalling a further $1.5 billion.

The picture is one of a diversified pool of funds, and the diversity is what keeps us buoyant in various fiscal storms. Urbanists often decry the fact cities don’t have revenues that grow with the economy — like income and sales tax. That works to the benefit of municipalities when the economy swings downward.

Property taxes — accounting for 40 per cent of the city’s budget — are essentially recession-proof.

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The province is still downloading costs. Our politicians are still dipping into reserves. There’s $22 billion in unfunded capital needs, even as the city approved another $21 billion worth of projects. And the city manager is asking councillors to dip their toes in the pool called “new revenues.” So, taxpayers, be on alert.

Toronto may not be rich. But it can’t cry poor — not when the workers ask to share the pie.