Toronto saved $33M during strike

The City of Toronto says it saved more than $33 million during the civic workers strike this summer — but it's unlikely any of that money will be directly handed back to taxpayers.

The 39-day strike by about 30,000 municipal employees left most residents of Canada's largest city with no residential garbage or recycling collection. City-run daycares and summer day camps were closed, along with swimming pools and most other city services.

On Tuesday, a report to the City of Toronto executive committee pegged the savings at a total of $33.2 million.

The report says the city reduced costs of by a total of $36.1 million in overall savings — a further $1.2 million was saved by Toronto Water.

But dealing with the city's garbage mountains actually increased costs for the city's Solid Waste Management Services by $4.1 million.

Overall the savings add up to $33.2 million, the report says.

One glaring expense was the overtime paid to the approximately 3,000 management and non-union staff that stayed on the job during the work stoppage.

The city paid more than $25 million in overtime — that works out to more than $8,000 per employee over the 39-day period.

Rebate for lost services unlikely

Coun. Doug Holyday is pushing for a rebate or a tax credit to compensate residents for the services they didn’t receive during the strike.

"It was a long strike, we had a lot of employees off that we didn't have to pay. I guess there's a cost to maintaining service on overtime, but I was hoping there would be more," Holyday said.

But budget chief Shelley Carroll said Tuesday that she doesn't think a rebate is the best way to use the savings. "If you do a rebate, you eat up some of those savings in the cost of cutting the cheques and sending them out," Carroll noted. She supports a recommendation from city staff that would put the savings towards next year's operating budget.

The report recommends that because of "the city's financial challenges, staff are recommending that the labour disruption savings be set aside for the 2010 budget."

In a separate report released Tuesday, city staff proposed a two-per-cent increase in garbage fees.  The city said the increase is needed to support its plan to achieve 70 per cent waste diversion by 2010. The proposal has to be approved by a committee on Oct. 19 before it can go before city council.