How can a voter tell when Mayor Rob Ford isn’t being entirely honest about his record? That’s easy. It’s whenever he says: “Here are the facts.”

Ford’s serial deceptions concerning crack cocaine, drunk driving, repeated episodes of public inebriation and his consorting with criminals are painfully obvious. But the mayor’s allergy to the truth extends well beyond private shame to his public record.

Already “salivating” for the next election, Ford wants people to set aside his weakness for drugs and drink and judge him solely on his record. But there’s a problem. His achievements are few and fall well short what voters were promised. Hence Ford’s relentless campaign of exaggeration and outright falsehood regarding his record. Here are his five greatest fibs:

I’ve saved $1 billion. This has been frequently and thoroughly debunked. But that hasn’t stopped Ford from repeating the dubious claim, again and again. To reach his magic total Ford lists “direct savings” that include $200 million, over four years, obtained by cancelling Toronto’s vehicle registration tax. But the tax was never an expense; it provided revenue to the city.

This claim is like telling someone who owes you $10 that they needn’t pay it back, and then saying your decision saved you 10 bucks. It didn’t.

Ford also counts $24 million in increased user fees as “savings” for the city. That’s an odd way to describe plucking millions from Torontonians’ collective pocket.

So how much has Ford really saved? The best way to measure that is to compare what he’s spending with what went before. And, whoops, penny-pinching Rob Ford is running a bigger budget — at $9.4 billion — than any mayor in Toronto’s history.

Ford’s billion-dollar savings boast doesn’t add up, but it’s the only way to justify an irresponsible campaign pledge. Which brings us to Ford’s next big fib.

I did what I promised. As part of stopping city hall’s “gravy train,” a key Ford campaign commitment was to shrink Toronto’s operating budget according to a strict schedule. This year it was supposed to be $1.2 billion below what it was in 2010, when former mayor David Miller spent $9.2 billion.

Ford assured skeptics that hitting this target would be easy (there was so much gravy to skim away). He even “guaranteed” that services wouldn’t be cut. Of course, the budget has never been higher. And services are reduced. Ford’s false claim of achieving $1 billion in savings is meant to offset this obviously broken commitment.

Other major promises that didn’t pan out include cutting the size of city council, eliminating the land transfer tax, and privatizing garbage collection — a job only half done.

I am reducing the city’s debt. Ford uttered this nose-stretcher as recently as Thursday, in a speech to the business community at Casa Loma. In fact, Toronto is slipping further into red ink under this mayor, with rising debt levels projected to peak in 2018, well after he has (probably) left office.

I’m cutting the influence of lobbyists. Really? Lobbyists don’t think so. They’ve been flocking to city hall on Ford’s watch. Three times more lobbyists registered with the city last year than in 2010. And allegations of misconduct tripled. Ford’s disgraceful attempt to hand much of Toronto’s waterfront to private developers also reveals an administration favouring vested interests.

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I pledge respect for the taxpayer. That’s laughable. Ford’s claim of keeping tax hikes “lower than any North American city” is flat-out wrong. (Even Windsor is doing better.) Toronto’s residential property tax jumped 2 per cent this year, and 2.5 per cent in 2012 — a reasonable increase. But in addition to that, Ford has needlessly saddled the average household with a total of more than $1,200 in increased property tax to pay for a three-stop Scarborough subway extension. An ultra-modern light rail line would have cost local ratepayers nothing. Zero. But Ford irresponsibly trashed that free alternative.

Respect? Ford’s chronic misrepresentation of his record is the ultimate insult, especially to supporters. He assumes people lack sufficient interest or intelligence to grasp the truth. On election day, next October, Toronto will have its chance to prove him wrong.