Not So Fast...We're Not Done With The Budget Yet

B.S. Budget has left a new comment on your post "Tomorrow NIght Another Budget Meeting":

I hate to say it and I am completely astounded that it has come to this but I don’t think our new Mayor is listening to the right people, I don’t want to cast blame on him for not digging deeper but I really think it’s time he stopped listening to the Town Hall dreamers and start acting on what this community overwhelmingly asked for "CHANGE" Fiscal responsibility has not and will never be, first and foremost with the bureaucrats , but you politicians must see to it that the money isn’t getting pissed away as it was the last four years. Certainly you cant be the only one who sees this

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Council is still reviewing the budget. Only a few small  items have been removed . My sense is and it's certainly what I intend , is  look at  the whole budget  before we decide to  make it our own.

At the moment, it is a   a draft for Council's consideration.

But it's something else as well. It is inherited.  A  huge number of projects were set in motion last year. Funds have already been expended in  phasing a  variety of studies.

$5 million dollars to be spent on the town hall, came out of the re-organisation  and is intended to make room for new employees.It is proposed to be paid  with  $3.5 million from the Hydro reserve. Which can't be touched without input from the community.

The Customer service study was started last year.  Money has already been spent.. Additional funds are recommended  to complete the project.

My judgment is,. it should never have been started. We will be throwing  good money after bad.  But I'm the only one there from last year with that perspective.  I don't think  the re-org had anything to do with improving the operation, or the assets management study,or  proposed improvement of customer service.

I think it had to do with shaping the administration to be more amenable to the control of the Mormac machine. Elevate some staff , denigrate others,give various non-elected organisations budgets and make them yours for life. 

Directors lost  areas of authority where they had expertise   and vice  versa.

The budget is more difficult to follow because of  the shifts. New managerial jobs are proposed, to compensate  for  lack of experience that came with the shifts

If  it  sounds like chaos, well that's how I see it.  I've been watching it happen.

There's no easy fix.

Because I'm going  to be the only saying  how bad I think it is. I am not the Mayor. I do not have the prime  leadership responsibility.

Councillors Gaertner and Gallo are the only other two councillors re-elected. They were  of the
six who made the previous decisions. They are unlikely to re-cant.

New councillors can't know from their own experience  yet they must form  a judgment. .

That's why, at the very least, I think council should not make big ticket decisions in their first year.  They should wait   until  they have a better sense of things. When they do ,they will be totally responsible for whatever they decide.They are going to be responsible whatever they do. They might as well be cautious. 

My  judgment is, we are contemplating  the end of  growth. It's  time to shrink managerial staff and switch attention to  the growing list of parks,sports fields, boulevards ,wood lots,  the urban forest and facilities where people gather.


We should be looking for ways and means to meet the new exigency of zero growth.

I firmly believe we are top heavy in administration and have been for the last twenty years.

It's time to get a grip.

Ending on a positive note, we will still be a small  manageable town even when we're fully grown.