11/3/2009
It appears Toronto Mayor David Miller is going on a bit of spending spree before he vacates his position. On Tuesday, he released the city's capital budget for the next ten years, and there are some pricey goodies, including 360 new subway cars and 390 new buses for the TTC alone. In all, about 16 billion dollars in planned spending and Miller has a strategy; instead of financing some of the city's projects over ten years, he'll finance over thirty years. He says he’s constantly told to run the city like a business, and that’s why he says he’s taking advantage of low interest rates to pay off the debt, which is set to climb a lot higher from the current 2.4 billion. Miller called the plan the right thing to do and says the pay-back plan will actually save taxpayers about 70 million dollars a year. Miller says the city is currently under some pressure to pay for projects partly covered by the federal stimulus strategy. The city has to come up with two-thirds of the cost of those projects..
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