After hitting municipalities with cutbacks in provincial funding, Premier Doug Ford says his government will now spend $7.35 million to help them find savings.

Toronto Mayor John Tory immediately panned the move, calling it a “$7 million public relations exercise by the government of Ontario.”

“It does us no good getting money for a line-by-line audit that we’re already doing without consideration from the province of the fact that these retroactive, mid-year cuts will seriously hurt residents and families,” Tory said in a statement of the estimated $178 million in funding clawbacks the city faces to public health, daycare and transit.

The mayor said he is “committed to finding more and great efficiencies” — but is urging the Ford government to halt the current cuts.

On Tuesday, Ford — repeating the “four cents on the dollar” mantra he used on the election campaign trail a year ago — said in a lunchtime speech in Ajax that the province will provide the money for cities and school boards to conduct in-depth financial audits to identify where they can trim budgets by 4 per cent.

Later, speaking to reporters, Ford said it’s not unfair for the province to impose clawbacks on the city well into its fiscal year.

“We’re asking to work with him as a partner,” Ford said. “We are working collaboratively with any municipality that wants to take us up on the offer.”

Read more:

Three-quarters of Ontarians think Doug Ford on ‘wrong track,’ poll suggests

Tory tells Ford city will look for savings, if province cancels this year’s budget cuts

Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: Doug Ford’s post-budget plan to declare bankruptcy

The premier noted that more than 90 per cent of provincial funding “goes to municipal partners and hospitals and universities. They’re our partners. We don’t have like Fort Knox sitting down at Queen’s Park, a whole bunch of gold sitting there. Ninety two per cent of our money goes to municipalities and other partners, so we’re asking them to work with us. And we’ll work with them and support them.”

Ford made the $7.35 million announcement speaking to members of the chambers of commerce in Whitby and Greater Oshawa, as well as the Ajax-Pickering Board of Trade.

Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, said boards “already operate very efficiently, because we’ve had to.”

She said it will be up to individual boards to take the province up on its offer, “but they’ll be hard-pressed to find 4 per cent in efficiencies” given about 80 per cent of funding is in staffing and contracts, and other pockets of money are “sweatered,” meaning they can only be spent on the programs they are intended for, said Abraham, of the Kawartha Pine Ridge public board.

But Ford said cities and school boards must do their part as the province tightens its fiscal belt.

“Our government was elected to fix 15 years of Liberal mismanagement, put the province on a path to balance and protect services like health care and education,” Ford said.

“But the previous Liberal government was using the credit card to pay the mortgage and, with interest payments costing our province $38 million a day, we can’t do it alone. We campaigned on finding four cents for every provincial dollar spent and we are asking our partners to do the same.”

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

The audit aid offer comes as the government continues to battle with larger municipalities like Toronto over the unexpected funding losses.

Several recent polls have also suggested continued news of the Ford government’s budget cuts are deeply unpopular with voters.

Ford noted the most recent poll was commissioned by a union, and “that’s pretty biased.”

It found that three of four Ontarians believe Ford and his Progressive Conservative government are “on the wrong track.”

“The only poll that counts is on election day,” Ford said. “What I’m telling you is, when I’m out there, I talk to people in the factories — and I’m out there almost every single day in factories — I hear nothing but positive remarks, ‘keep going.’ That’s the number one comment I hear is, ‘keep going,’ because our budget was reasonable. It was responsible. Most of all, it was thoughtful.”

In a letter released earlier, Tory said he is willing to examine spending for 2020 with the province or private-sector help, but said core services must be protected.

Tory said city staff continue to look for ways to trim spending, but “to find a higher magnitude of efficiencies than ever before, halfway through the year … it simply defies logic to suggest this is possible,” he wrote.

Tory said the city spent $3.5 million for an independent audit — which found just $12.6 million in net savings.

“I also continue to question the priorities of (the Ford) government, which proposes spending hundreds of millions of dollars ripping up the Beer Store contract, rather than investing in breakfast programs for kids and child care subsidies for families,” Tory said.

Ford, however, told reporters the reductions in funding to municipalities should not be a surprise.

“Our whole (election) campaign was reducing the size and cost of government. I’m not too sure where they missed the message there.”

With files from Robert Benzie and David Rider

Read more about: