As Toronto councillors continue to sift through an already controversial multi-billion dollar budget, some are calling for changes to how residents lodge their most mundane complaints.
The city’s 311 service is designed to connect people in Toronto with municipal services. You can ring the three-digit line for everything from problems with your landlord to getting help for an injured raccoon.
Those phone calls, however, are far from free.
According to Gary Yorke, Toronto’s director of customer experience, every call to 311 costs the city between $11 and $16. The app, which is used by less than 20 per cent of residents, costs around 10 cents for every interaction.
The cost means the city is spending millions every year on its phone service, while its underused app costs property taxpayers a fraction of that sum.
Coun. Lily Cheng said a concerted effort needs to be made to drive people to the city’s app and cut costs.
“That is a huge number and Torontonians can help reduce the City of Toronto budget by using the app,” she told Global News.
The costly call line can’t be cut entirely, though.
Accessibility advocate David Lepofsky points out that without the phone service, some of the city’s residents wouldn’t be able to access key services at all.
He told Global News the app “presupposes” a lot of knowledge about how the city works on issues like what constitutes a bylaw infraction. The difference between the app and calling, he pointed out, is that someone on the end of a phone can help bridge that gap.
Lepofsky said that presented a “completely unfair barrier” to some people, including seniors, people with learning disabilities and people with autism.
The revelation about the cost of a 311 call comes as the city works to trim a budget that staff already says has been cut to the bone.
The current budget proposed a 10.5 per cent property tax increase in Toronto, with the potential to rise to 16.5 per cent if new federal funding doesn’t materialize before the end of the month.
City staff told councillors Friday they had looked “very, very hard” for saving when they wrote the original document and couldn’t find many new areas to cut.
The budget includes some “strategic” investments, budget chief Coun. Shelley Carroll has said, but largely maintains the status quo.
Toronto’s budget process will continue for several more weeks. The city expects to pass its final budget on Feb. 14.
— with files from Global News’ Matthew Bingley