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Why do it
More upscale design
The current clubhouse is a long, simple rectangular brick box that was easy to convert to additional uses for only a small amount of money -- but it's not very elegant. The gardens are a bit 'hayseed' with their split rail fences. The two ovens are showing their age and intensity of use. The new sitting area is really just picnic tables and planters and inexpensive patio umbrellas. Meantime the neighbourhood house prices have hit the stratosphere and only affluent people can afford to buy in. The park still shows many signs of the relatively recent history of scavenging old benches, community paint-and-repair bees, a traditional wooden playground and a wading pool first built in the 1950's.
But now that the neighbourhood has changed, maybe some of the new residents would appreciate a more upscale look to their park as well.
Another way to cover the Capital Projects staff payroll
When Toronto and its boroughs were first amalgamated, it was decided that Capital Projects staff would not have the same kind of operating budget as all the other city divisions. Instead, the Capital Projects staff payroll would be covered mostly or even entirely by a percentage of the project costs. This was once illegal, since it means payroll can be covered by borrowing for the capital budget instead of by allotting an operating budget through taxes. Cities were not allowed to meet their operating costs by borrowing.
The practice seems not to be illegal anymore. But it does raise the possibility of a conflict of interest, since capital projects management will meet their staff payroll better with larger, more costly new projects rather than with cheaper repairs, and so their advice to Council will tend in that direction.
We weren't sure if this conflict of interest situation is still the case in 2017, so a park friend sent in a freedom of information request to find out. The response is here: over the past three years, Capital Projects staff covered between 60 and 70 per cent of their payroll through a "recovery from capital" charge. Since this charge is a percentage of the project cost, the stakes are high: the more large projects are approved by Council, the more funds are available to pay the staff, or hire more and enlarge the unit.
From PFR Manager of Financial Planning Judy Skinner: "[Between 2014 and 2016] the PFR capital project delivery staff has increased from $5.576 million...to $8.180 million...predominately due to the increase in service improvement and growth related projects for parks and recreation facilities."
Clarification: the capital projects staff seem to be paid not directly from the capital budget, but through the operating budget. The capital recovery percentage is entered separately as a revenue, which then -- dollar for dollar -- is used to pay the staff salaries and benefits noted here. An ingenious bit of accounting.
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