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And those services are delivered pretty decently, according to the reports. They don’t even suggest what efficiencies might be found — the mythical gravy — because that’s not what KPMG was commissioned to do.

That City Hall wastes some money is as obvious as it ever was. The question remains how much. We were promised enough to significantly ameliorate the nearly $800-million budget shortfall. We’re still waiting.

And we were promised it wouldn’t impact services. Now we know it will.

Look at KPMG’s cost-saving suggestions to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. It could opt to make the city dirtier (less street-sweeping), the streets more treacherous (less snow-plowing), and garbage collection more expensive (by taking away the four free garbage bag tags per year). In each of these cases, the “potential savings” level was assessed as “low” — no more than 5% of the costs of those particular programs. We might be talking about $10- or $15-million at the outside if all of the recommendations were implemented.

And they won’t all be. Count on it. If KPMG had assessed the potential citizen annoyance level of their proposals, it would likely have found it “extreme.” These are the sorts of things that provoked Ford Nation’s fury in the first place. Pay the same, or more, and get less? How could Mr. Ford possibly get behind that?

Admittedly, some useful, debatable suggestions have emerged thus far: Outsourcing more waste collection and social support programs, getting out of the “small commercial waste collection” business, re-examining the city’s business development model. And perhaps there are some moves Mr. Ford could undertake without alienating his core supporters, such as eviscerating arts funding or slashing money for “bicycle infrastructure management.”