Search Results for: Municipal Revenues

Across North American cities, the demand for better public transit is pervasive, yet many local governments lack sufficient revenue to finance the construction of new infrastructure. To resolve this dilemma, some localities have turned to citizens directly, proposing temporary, earmarked, sales tax increases as a way to finance capital-intensive projects. Why have some communities been more receptive to this funding model than others? This study addresses this question by comparing the recent experiences of Los Angeles County (2008), where a ballot measure to raise money for transportation was successful and Metro Vancouver (2015), where a similar public vote was unsuccessful.
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Whether institutional constraints are desirable is a debate that may alternatively be framed as one over the merits of local government autonomy. This paper contributes to this debate by empirically analysing the effects of local government autonomy on several outcomes, including the size of government, the ownsource revenue mix, and fiscal sustainability.
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Chris Murray, Toronto’s City Manager, is a former planner who thinks of the future in terms of decades, not years. In this video of his address, Toronto’s Future: Who’s Paying?, he discusses the “elephant in the room” when it comes to municipal government: what kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?
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Ontario’s Development Charges Act (DCA) provides the legal framework within which municipalities recover growth-related capital costs from the new development giving rise to such costs. While the purpose of the DCA is to ensure that growth pays for itself, the way the DCA is designed prevents it from achieving its obvious goal.
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Toronto City Manager Chris Murray discussed the "elephant in the room" when it comes to municipal government: what kind of city are we leaving behind for future generations?
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What are the policy issues that matter in the 2018 Ontario municipal election? What goes into covering the city hall press beat? On October 2, 2018, IMFG and School of Cities assembled a panel of journalists who explored how they cover municipal elections, which policy issues matter most, and how to adapt and stay relevant in the changing media landscape.
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Before the last municipal election in 2014, IMFG issued a Perspectives Paper on Toronto’s Fiscal Health (Is Toronto Fiscally Healthy? A Check-up on the City’s Finances by Enid Slack and André Côté). In that paper, we undertook an assessment of the state of the City’s finances in four areas: spending and services; taxes and revenues; debt and savings; and infrastructure.
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Elections are a time to assess what has happened in our community since the last election and ask questions – often uncomfortable questions – about the places we live and the environment we are creating for those who live here. In the lead-up to the 2018 Ontario municipal election, the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance has commissioned a series of short pre-election papers to add to the dialogue and tap into the ideas of some of the GTHA’s most respected leaders. As you read these short papers, you will see that we have covered a wide range of themes – transportation, housing, homelessness, youth, neighbourhoods, Indigenous peoples, mental health, decent work, policing, universities, arts and culture, and regional and local governance.
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