When is a saving not a saving? When it becomes a political football punted between the curved towers at city hall.

The city’s finance staff — city manager, CFO, budget analysts, number crunchers, spin doctors and a timid team numbering about 10 — tried gallantly on Monday to explain to the media the real meaning behind Rob Ford’s $1 billion savings claim.

You couldn’t pay me enough to make sense of this. But, for the cost of a subscription, here goes:

If Rob Ford tells you he rode into city hall, rescued the ship from the edge of bankruptcy, and saved $1 billion where others might have spent the same, he’s fibbing.

Yes, you can find close to that amount in what can be considered “savings.” But you could do a similar calculation for the David Miller years; and Mel Lastman; and just about any mayor across the GTA.

I exaggerate not.

Related: Line-by-line analysis: Big holes in Rob Ford’s ‘saved $1 billion’ claim

Top bureaucrat: Some of Rob Ford’s ‘$1 billion’ not savings to city

Budget confusion lets Ford get away with ‘$1B savings’ claim: James

“Every administration since amalgamation (1998) has saved hundreds of millions of dollars,” city manager Joe Pennachetti told reporters.

He should know. He’s been minding the till.

Here’s why you should be skeptical of all this. Finance staff has already estimated that next year’s budget pressure is about $333 million. That requires a 16 per cent property tax hike to erase.

Everyone knows this is a starting position that will be whittled down to about $70 million, requiring an increase of no more than 2 or 3 per cent.

Here is the mind-boggler: When council approves that 2 or 3 per cent hike next year, the new mayor can immediately claim that he saved you $260 million. Even though the $333 million figure was a guesstimate that everyone knew would never happen. Repeat that over four years, and the “savings” top out at a billion dollars.

Around city hall, they are calling that kind of calculation “Rossini Math” — named after chief financial officer Roberto Rossini.

The CFO is an affable fellow. Where city manager Joe Pennachetti is careful to a fault, Rossini is gregarious and chatty. He saw none of the political storm coming when he appeared on the Rob and Doug Ford radio show to confirm the mayor’s boast that he had saved taxpayers a billion dollars in four years at city hall.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

He didn’t know the mayor would spin that into a message that says he saved the city of Toronto from fiscal ruin; he stopped the gravy train; he saved money where Miller was spending it.

But using “Rossini Math” we can now claim Miller “saved” more money than Ford . . . some $2.6 billion in budgetary reductions compared with more than the $2.3 billion under Ford.

Miller made more budget reductions than Ford. But he also spent more . . . “because the pressure he faced was higher,” Rossini explans.

You think?

When Miller was mayor, the city laboured under the load of provincial downloading. He and other mayors fought and got the province to take back social service costs dumped on cities. Toronto succeeded in getting new revenue tools: the vehicle tax and land transfer tax.

With those revenues in place, Miller brought in inflationary tax increases. His rates were about 2.5 per cent on average, while Ford’s has been 1.1 per cent. And why is that?

Ford is spending money that Miller secured — so much so, he doesn’t need as much in property taxes.

The land transfer tax is raking in cash for Ford — money he doesn’t have to tax for. The province is kicking in hundreds of millions — money they stole from the city and which Miller recovered.

In fact, the whole city budget is so entangled with historical discrepancies, one-time fixes, and unexplained budgetary manoeuvres that it is impossible to say who should get credit for what.

This, though, is true. Under Miller, “budgetary reductions and costs for city union contracts” total $545 million. (Did you know concessions he got from the civic strike actually saved you $174 million?) Under Ford, the budgetary reduction figure is $893 million. The difference is $348 million — and that is as close as it gets to quantifying the impact of the Ford administration on the city.

Pennachetti has another indicator. Under Miller, the city used $834 million in operating surplus and reserve funds to balance the budget. Ford as used $571 million, or about $263 million less.

That’s nothng to sneeze at, even on a near $10-billion budget. Ford, of course, could have stuck to that. But in his usual hyperbolic state, he peddles the billion-dollar claim.

And you are scratching your head. After decades of this kind of budgetary hocus-pocus, I have no hair left.