City manager Joe Pennachetti says there is no more gravy to be found at Toronto city hall.

“I believe we’ve gone as far as we can without impacting services,” Pennachetti said Tuesday, as the Ford brothers continued to call for staff to suss out an additional $18 million in budget cuts.

Pennachetti said that amount would be “very difficult to find. If there was potential for that reduction to have the increase lower than the 2 percent or 2.5 percent, staff would have recommended it.”

Last week, city staff said they could balance the books and accommodate the new subway expansion tax with a 2.5 per cent property tax hike. It’s a number that both Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly and budget chief Frank DiGiorgio say is appropriate given the additional transit tax pressures.

But the Ford brothers say nothing above 1.75 percent is acceptable.

They’ve called on staff to locate $18 million in extra efficiencies to make that happen.

On Monday, Mayor Rob Ford told reporters that he could locate another “$50 million, easy” in Toronto’s $9.6 billion operating budget.

To this Pennachetti said he’d be interested to know what the mayor has in mind. And as for Councillor Ford’s recent suggestion that city staff haven’t worked hard enough to come up with savings, Pennachetti defended his team.

“I respect Councillor Ford … I know that he believes that there still is, and are, efficiencies there. And I believe that we have gone as far as we can without impacting services.”

The city manager made his comments after the mayor kicked off his third annual toy drive at city hall. Pennachetti was asked about whether the many distractions around the Ford mayoralty have detracted from these types of charitable events and whether any groups have been reluctant to get involved with initiatives associated with the embattled mayor.

“There have been a few cases so far where that has been the case. But we just have to move forward, which we have,” Pennachetti said. “We still have partners. And invariably there are private partners, community partners, that are willing to continue with all our initiatives.”

On Tuesday, the budget committee met for a second day to listen to public deputations. The committee will sit again next Tuesday.

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