Ever so slowly, Toronto’s top bureaucrat is gaining courage.

City manager Joe Pennachetti stuck his toe in the water again last Friday in a speech to business and legal types and, y’know, a tidal wave of controversy didn’t wash up against the city walls.

Toronto isn’t broke, he said. And if anyone says so — a coy Pennachetti chuckled and said — “I won’t say who . . . it’s incorrect.”

In fact, Toronto is far from broke, thanks to measures the inscrutable Pennachetti and staff have nurtured for more than a decade, often hiding pots of money from the politicians, squirreling away rainy day funds until the rains came.

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Whining about taxes? Listen up, Toronto: You’re getting a deal

Despite an unprecedented provincial money-grab that accompanied amalgamation in 1998, despite a global financial meltdown, despite continued growth that leads to increased service demands, despite mounting infrastructure challenges, tax rates here are among the lowest in the region.

Sometimes he used duct tape; other times he played Houdini with budgetary magic tricks; and most recently he and staff rolled up their sleeves and found actual savings by the hundreds of millions.

He’s survived Mel Lastman and David Miller and Rob Ford. And as he nears the end of a municipal career that has taken him to all regions of the GTA, the guarded Joe P has begun to shed the mask of the faceless bureaucrat.

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He says it’s all designed to save the city from those who might ruin a good thing by promising budget savings that are no longer there.

He’s crafting a message to leave behind. And it goes something like:

For a decade, Toronto has cut and chopped and squeezed fat from its budget; badgered Queen’s Park for money; secured taxing powers from the province; and completed a “core services review” that netted hundreds of millions of dollars in “efficiencies.”

And, still, it is not enough to deliver fiscal sustainability that produces enough revenues to cover inflation and build the city that residents demand.

“We do not have the revenue tools we should have,” Pennachetti says. “Give Toronto a 1 per cent share of the HST — even half a per cent — and the city could safely plan a future not threatened by extraordinary property tax hikes that city councillors and mayor won’t implement.

Pennachetti has strategic reasons for becoming more vocal on the need for more revenue tools.

One, it’s the truth.

Two, it’s election time and voters are sure to hear the exact opposite from would-be mayors who want to curry favour from constituents looking for a mayor who promises them a great city for free; or who tells them the city is swimming in waste so taxes don’t have to increase.

Three, it’s the culmination of a message track Joe P and finance staff jumped on at the start of this term of council, in 2010.

And finally, he’s saying it because he can, without incurring the wrath of a mayor who might engineer his ouster.

While some point to the mountain of capital cost on the horizon — a $2.6 billion shortfall on TTC projects and nearly the same for a housing backlog — Joe P knows that eventually, the province and the federal government must step up and help pay for these. Either that or the projects won’t get built. And pressure will mount organically as the need overwhelms the populace.

Pennachetti is more concerned about the ongoing operating-budget pressure — hovering above $300 million each year, after cost-saving measures.

Property tax hikes have averaged around inflation for the past decade, he says. That takes care of, well, inflation. To build community centres, open outdoor rinks into March, pay for police and fire services, subsidize the transit system, operate the homes for the aged and plant flowers and trees, and clear the snow in a growing city — this requires more than the 2 per cent tax hike we are used to.

Pennachetti has been around long enough to know the city councillor isn’t prepared to consistently incur the wrath of ratepayers by approving annual 5 or 6 per cent increases. So, he’s angling for another source of revenues.

The ask — a consistent one that had more currency under Lastman and Miller — accomplishes another goal. It stands in defiance of those who suggest that the land transfer tax should be abolished.

In essence, poker-faced Pennachetti is doubling down. If his is a winning hand, he won’t be around when Toronto cashes in.