DON QUIXOTE VS. CITY HALL When an American gets mad, he says "where's my Gun". When a Canadian gets pissed off he says "Where is my pen, I'm going to send a letter to the EDITOR". When the EDITOR won't publish his letter he sets up his own BLOG page.
When I received enough support to get a Council Seat the dogma of the establishment became : "Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in." (Only time will tell !)
Friday, June 18, 2010
Total cost of Greater Vernon politicians.
Courtesy of the COLDSTREAMER: Councillor Besso prepared this chart for all Greater Vernon Taxpayers' edification. Enjoy!
Interesting, if you subtract the Mayor of Vernon's salary, you are left with a cost of $347,975.33.
The average remaing (15)councillor's cost would then be $23,198.36.
Therefore, if Vernon, Coldstream and Area's B & c were amagalmated and reduced to a Mayor and 6 councillor's, the saving would be (347,975.33 - 139,190.16) = $208,784.73.
I say bring it on and fast. Also other reductions would accordingly follow at NORD.
The cost of politicians is NEGLIGIBLE compared to all the other costs of running a local government.
All the Greater Vernon politicians' pay summed together ($433K) barely represents 2% of the City's $18.8 million payroll.
The conclusion that eliminating politicians would save us a pile of money is therefore a faulty one.
The two largest municipal expenditures (except staff) are ROADS and POLICING.
What Robert's little scenario fails to consider is that any politician cost-savings would be immediately overshadowed by the HORRENDOUS cost of road maintenance for those two electoral areas, PLUS the increased cost of policing the entire expanded city, not to mention all the other responsibilities the City would assume.
The Province currently pays the majority of those costs in electoral areas, but as soon as the City takes those areas over, the City assumes 100% of the cost and responsibility.
And I will state again, that history shows us that amalgamation is ALWAYS more expensive.
Robert, I fail to understand why you want to pay even more taxes than you do already, without any improvement in services.
So 2% is not a significant amount these days? What services do we get in Area C other than the so called SIR program.
You have to start somewhere and in as much none of the governing areas practice zero based budgeting or evaluate their operations on a annual basis.
As for the policing, Areas B & C pay for same, but I suspect the City of Vernon is the major cost area.
As for road maintenance, Silver Star road is categorized the same has Hwy 97 from October to April. Seldom do you see any pot holes in the non Vernon section of this road.
If the City takes over Areas B & C naturally costs would be allocated to same on a representative basis.
Currently Areas B & C pay substantial taxes, (ie: Silver Star Ski Hill area - $2,800,000) and what do they receive for that?
The underlying issue is fiscal & good goverance and we sure don't get that these days.
4 comments:
Interesting, if you subtract the Mayor of Vernon's salary, you are left with a cost of $347,975.33.
The average remaing (15)councillor's cost would then be $23,198.36.
Therefore, if Vernon, Coldstream and Area's B & c were amagalmated and reduced to a Mayor and 6 councillor's, the saving would be
(347,975.33 - 139,190.16) = $208,784.73.
I say bring it on and fast. Also other reductions would accordingly follow at NORD.
Robert's math is incomplete, at best.
The cost of politicians is NEGLIGIBLE compared to all the other costs of running a local government.
All the Greater Vernon politicians' pay summed together ($433K) barely represents 2% of the City's $18.8 million payroll.
The conclusion that eliminating politicians would save us a pile of money is therefore a faulty one.
The two largest municipal expenditures (except staff) are ROADS and POLICING.
What Robert's little scenario fails to consider is that any politician cost-savings would be immediately overshadowed by the HORRENDOUS cost of road maintenance for those two electoral areas, PLUS the increased cost of policing the entire expanded city, not to mention all the other responsibilities the City would assume.
The Province currently pays the majority of those costs in electoral areas, but as soon as the City takes those areas over, the City assumes 100% of the cost and responsibility.
And I will state again, that history shows us that amalgamation is ALWAYS more expensive.
Robert, I fail to understand why you want to pay even more taxes than you do already, without any improvement in services.
The answer is to withdraw from all regional services and amalgamate Vernon and Coldstream.This would eliminate alot of the fat.
EasthillResident:
So 2% is not a significant amount these days? What services do we get in Area C other than the so called SIR program.
You have to start somewhere and in as much none of the governing areas practice zero based budgeting or evaluate their operations on a annual basis.
As for the policing, Areas B & C pay for same, but I suspect the City of Vernon is the major cost area.
As for road maintenance, Silver Star road is categorized the same has Hwy 97 from October to April. Seldom do you see any pot holes in the non Vernon section of this road.
If the City takes over Areas B & C naturally costs would be allocated to same on a representative basis.
Currently Areas B & C pay substantial taxes, (ie: Silver Star Ski Hill area - $2,800,000) and what do they receive for that?
The underlying issue is fiscal & good goverance and we sure don't get that these days.
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