Speaking to senior bureaucrats near the airport Friday, Toronto’s top dog Joe Pennachetti made this admission: It’s near impossible to explain the city’s finances in simple terms.

Budget savings are not tax savings — not when a cut in revenues can be presented as saving the taxpayers money; not when the budget chief can tap reserve funds for $25 million and claim he saved taxpayers that amount.

They are “budget savings,” sure — but if budget savings are considered “tax savings,” then — by that definition — former Mayor David Miller can claim he saved Torontonians billions of dollars. And did.

Frustrated, Pennachetti says he will leave his city manager post (sometime this year, is the best guess), having failed to accomplish his goal of budget clarity.

He may also leave with a legacy of helping to get Rob Ford re-elected for something the mayor did not do but claims to.

Pennachetti and the city’s chief financial officer, Rob Rossini, are caught up in a the political storm over just how much money Ford has save the taxpayers in his four years as mayor.

Ford claims it is $1 billion. And he routinely says the boast is backed by city staff, especially Rossini.

The billion-dollar claim is central to Ford’s bid for re-election. Essentially, Ford’s argument is, “I might be a mess in my private life, but look how much money I’ve shoveled into your pocket.

“Remember the Vehicle Registration Tax? Sixty bucks. In your wallet.

“I saved you a billion dollars, folks. That must make me the greatest mayor in the history of the city, if not the world. Guaranteed.”

Rossini is Ford’s first witness, as the mayor makes his case. The CFO has taken a lot of heat for going on the Ford Brothers’ old radio show to essentially back the mayor’s billion-dollar claim.

If you listen closely, there is a difference between what Rossini says and what Ford says, but not clear enough to refute a single dollar of what Ford claims as tax savings.

The nuance between “budget savings” and “tax savings” is too fine a point for the average citizen. What they, in fact, hear when Ford speaks in slogans, is exactly what Ford wants them to hear: Taxpayers are a billion dollars better under his regime.

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My colleague Daniel Dale has done a masterful job in deconstructing the Ford claim and the fact that Rossini is an accomplice to the mis-statement of fact.

Consider the following and decide if they are what you envisioned when Ford promised to cut $2 billion in spending without cutting a single service. “Guaranteed.” Cause, of course, there was so much gravy at city hall that you could easily scrape waste off the floor.

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Fuel prices ended up lower than projected, so Ford claims the $23 million saved as part of mopping up the gravy. Interest rates dropped, saving another $36 million, and Ford portrays this as a tax saving.

User fees jumped $30 million under Ford; the mayor claims this as a tax saving because if he didn’t increase the fees — like transit fares — then taxes would go up on everyone. At the same time he stopped another user fee, the vehicle registration tax, but claimed that as a tax saving — even though it meant all taxpayers had to fill the revenue gap created.

The provincial government exempted the TTC from $54 million in “fringe benefits liabilities.” Ford takes credit for saving taxpayers $54 million.

Pennachetti, caught up in the maelstrom, tries to extricate staff without throwing Rossini under the bus or contradicting the mayor.

“That’s not right,” he said. “You can’t say, ‘I saved taxpayers a billion dollars.’ The inference is there is a billion dollars of tax savings. That’s not a correct statement.

“Council reduced expenditure levels with a combination of cuts and revenue increases to minimize the tax increases … and every mayor has done that.”

What Ford can claim is about $350 million in savings. An easy way to figure that out is this: During the Miller years the city had to constantly depend on about $350 million in all kinds of surplus and reserve funds; under Ford, that dependence has disappeared.

“The savings the mayor can take credit for is the $350 million. You cannot deny him that,” Pennachetti said. “But to pick a number of a billion dollars in tax savings — that’s stretching things.”

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca