Municipal funding pressures created by COVID-19 are discussed in “COVID-19 crisis creates chance to re-examine provincial funding of cities” Toronto Star, April 6, 2020.
Last week, the City of Toronto announced it was facing $65 million in weekly financial pressures. Other cities across Ontario and transit agencies across the country are also warning of shortfalls.
The article is co-written by UTTRI associated faculty Dr. Enid Slack, Director of the Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance (IMFG) and Tomas Hachard, Manager, Programs and Research at IMFG.
The authors recommend that all levels of government continue to collaborate, pursue changes and make investments to strengthen the economic stability of cities.
On the subject of public transit, they state:
Transit offers another example where important changes could be made. Currently, funding to operate and maintain transit in Ontario comes from fare revenues and municipal subsidies. The result is a significant strain on municipal finances. As Matti Siemiatycki and Drew Fagan note in a recent paper, we need all orders of government to come together to provide stable transit funding, not only for new subways and LRT lines, but also for operations and maintenance.
Read full article at Toronto Star.
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