The City Manager's report on what cost-cutting measures should be adopted from the KPMG Core Services Review was released earlier today. Should the many recommendations for cuts, service reductions and/or privatizations be voted through when the Executive Committee convenes next Monday, the City anticipates trimming the 2012 budget by approximately $100 million, with a total savings between 2012 and 2014 projected to be between $200- to $300 million.

While the report notes that "most of the services KPMG put forward for consideration have not been recommended for elimination," the same can't be said when it comes to recommended "reductions" or "privatizations." Some notable services that escaped recommendations for cutbacks include the fluoridation of Toronto water, cycling infrastructure, the Toxic Taxi, and commercial waste pick up. Here, on the other hand, are just some of the services under consideration for cuts or cutbacks:

The City Manager recommends that Toronto...

• Sell its zoos and farms. If no buyer can be found, they should be closed.
• Sell or lease the Sony Centre, the St. Lawrence Centre and the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts
• Curb new affordable housing development
• Reduce the Housing Loan Program, and Housing Policy and Partnership such that it's funded by the federal and provincial governments
• Reduce the number of subsidized child care spaces through attrition once
• the Child Care Expansion Reserve Fund is depleted in 2013, and request that Ontario increase funding for child care
• Reduce cultural services by closing those museums with the least attendance and revenues compared to costs/budgets
• Eliminate the four free garbage tag program
• Eliminate Community Environment Days
• Eliminate the Christmas Bureau (yikes, that's bad for PR)
• Eliminate community grants less than $10,000 and/or those in which City funding represents less than five per cent of the program budget
• Eliminate the windrow-clearing program, which clears the walls of snow created by plows
• Convert Heritage Toronto into an private not-for-profit agency
• Consider eliminating Blue Night bus service or charge premium fare for its use
• Consider reducing library hours and days of operation and "rationalizing" the footprint of public libraries by closing some branches

The full report and list of recommendations can be found here. Who thinks the ExCom will go in for the all the cuts? Are there any surprises here?

Photo by Cameron MacMaster in the blogTO Flickr pool