TORONTO

A day after Toronto city council approved the 2012 budget, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti says it is time to cut council in half.

Mammoliti told the Sun Wednesday he plans to move a motion within the next two months to reduce the number of councillors from 44 to 22.

“I think it is appropriate and time to consider,” Mammoliti said.

The move comes after a slim majority of 23 councillors lined up against Mayor Rob Ford Tuesday night to reverse almost $19 million in cuts to the 2012 budget.

“Budgets are important to this city and we have to understand that the amount of councillors in council make it very difficult to make timely decisions,” Mammoliti said.

The York West (Ward 7) councillor said he hopes to make the move as early as the next council meeting and to have the change ready in time for the next municipal election in 2014.

Ford’s 2010 election platform included a pledge to cut council in half but the mayor always maintained he wouldn’t bring the issue to council until the last year of his term.

Like Ford, Mammoliti said councillors’ wards should match the 22 federal and provincial ridings that make up Toronto.

“There would be more of a willingness to work together and less friction (with 22 councillors),” Mammoliti argued.

While Mammoliti looked at carving up council, other members of Ford’s inner circle were still focused on the 2012 budget.

Despite the mayor losing votes on some of the cuts, Councillor Doug Ford said the budget was “good news for the taxpayers of Toronto.”

“I thought there was going to be a bigger battle,” Ford said Wednesday.

TTC chair Karen Stintz dismissed the notion the TTC could use the $5 million city council pulled out of the budget surplus to save transit service slated to be cut.

“It would be my recommendation that we don’t put it back into off-peak service because it is one-time funding that is not sustainable,” she said. “We will not be able to continue to afford it unless we raise fares beyond the rate of inflation or unless we get a subsidy increase from the city.”

Stintz said the best thing to do would be to put the $5 million back towards capital funding for streetcars or buses or to use it to maintain Wheel-Trans service for ambulatory dialysis patients.