Ron Seymour The Okanagan Saturday 2010-12-18
Cuts to the 2011 Kelowna budget were made even before the document was presented to councillors. Senior managers were told to lower costs in areas such as staffing, road paving, parks maintenance and the size of the city‘s vehicle fleet. However, all the advance work to present what was described as a lean budget didn‘t prevent councillors from engaging in spirited, sometimes testy debate Thursday as they looked for ways to further trim the provisional spending plan. Councillors Andre Blanleil and Michele Rule had the sharpest exchange of the nearly 12-hour budget-setting session. Ironically, the positions they took were opposite to where they usually stand in money-related discussions. Rule, who rarely speaks out against any form of civic spending, looked over the $3.4 million worth of new vehicles and transportation-related equipment provided for in the budget and suggested a $23,000 pickup truck be dropped from the list. The city has a long-standing policy of replacing most vehicles once they are 10 years old or have racked up 200,000 kilometres. However, that policy was adjusted going into this budget, and 14 vehicles that have technically exceeded their service life will be kept on the road a few more years. In response to Rule‘s suggestion, Blanleil said council should not be "micromanaging" the operation of the vehicle fleet, and that staff should be trusted to recommend only those new car and truck purchases that are absolutely necessary for maximum efficiency. "We need to have vehicles for our staff to do their jobs," said Blanleil, who is the councillor most likely to question planned expenditures. Coun. Robert Hobson also spoke against Rule‘s suggestion to drop the pickup. Rule said she "took a lot of offence" at Blanleil‘s comments and that she did, in fact, trust staff. Coun. Charlie Hodge supported Rule, saying of the micromanaging allegation: "We‘re in bloody budget. That‘s exactly what we‘re supposed to do." After the exchanges, council voted to drop the pickup, a move that reduced the total taxation impact by 0.03 per cent, measured against the total taxation demand of almost $97 million.
Of course, councillors did not bring anywhere near that level of scrutiny and debate to the literally hundreds of spending items contained in the 2011 budget. To do so would extend budget deliberations by days, possibly weeks. Million-dollar projects are routinely approved with no comment. Even some surprising budget items - such as an extra $100,000 to provide last-minute additional funding for January‘s International Children‘s Winter Games, when council was previously told the city‘s commitment would be only $20,000 - drew no response from councillors. Generally, that‘s because councillors believe staff have, in fact, done a thorough and prudent job in preparing the budget. Here are three examples of ways in which costs were reduced before councillors even got a look at the budget.
- Road resurfacing. The city‘s transportation department has an annual program to put down new pavement on local streets, based upon factors such as existing condition, vehicle use and last time the work was done. Through the initial calculations, $3.1 million worth of paving was set to be done in 2011. However, that was reduced by senior staff to $2.9 million, and a suggestion by Hodge at council to pare it further drew no support from his colleagues."Once you‘ve got roads, you‘ve got to maintain them," Coun. Robert Hobson said.
- Some vacant staff positions will not be filled in 2011. Since almost one-quarter of all municipal staff earn at least $75,000, that practice can yield significant savings. "There will be attrition in the coming years," city manager Ron Mattiussi told council. "As that happens, we will retire some positions."
- Parks maintenance. More than $300,000 that had been proposed to improve the cleaning at local beaches and parks, do more landscaping on civic land and enhance the graffiti-removal program did not make it into the budget. "It‘s a tough budget year and we have to cut back," said Joe Creron, director of civic operations. Hobson predicted residents would accept the trade-offs councillors make in balancing service levels with taxation demands. "If we keep the budget low, there are consequences," he said, "and I think the public understands that."
No comments:
Post a Comment