Sugar Plums? Ya Think?

The last Council Meeting of the year is December 13th.

From Christmas Eve the Town Hall is closed.

It re-opens on January 3rd.

I've always thought it weird that nobody has business with the town for nine full days. That's the reason given for the town to close for that length of time.

I went to sleep last night thinking about expenditures recommended by council to be approved at tomorrow's council meeting.

I calculated eighteen days until year's end. This morning I awoke thinking...Wait a minute... it's not even that long.

It's only eight days before the town hall closes.

Within eight days of the end of 2011, Council will authorize $404,685.to be spent.

1. Ice plant retrofit $174,855.
2,Front end loader $134,869.
3.Consultant contract award $94,961.

Think about it.

The projects were budgeted in 2011

Approving them doesn't mean they will be started let alone completed within the year.

But the books will show those funds in the 2011 budget were expended.

It's almost half a million dollars.

If not approved, actual spending in 2011 would be that much less.

That amount represents close to 2% of last year's tax increase.

We approved numbers of big ticket items in the past few weeks.

Almost like a rush to get it all spent under the wire.

Like we put so much stuff in last year's budget,there simply wasn't time to spend it all.

Under the circumstances, it could be could argued since none of it was acquired within the year,none of it was needed within the year.

I'm not even considering the half million we gave away to the Culture Centre under an agreement that reflects zero town interest.

$100,000 to the arboretum, $85,000 ,for a strategic plan update,a make work project if ever I saw one, and a customer service plan and $440,000 worth of computer software to track assets.

Oh yes...we also have an estimate of seventeen million dollars for a combined works and parks yard and five million on the town hall to accommodate all the new managerial staff we have hired.

As noted by critics. I am not an accountant. I am minus an engineering degree.

I am equally unimpressed by certificates of excellence from a self- aggrandized institute situated in Ottawa.

But I recognise baffle gab when I hear it. Oh My Lord yes children,it does not take brains.

Eight per cent planned increase in town spending in 2012 currently being contemplated by council and thus far approved exactly as presented, is a tax grab on top of a tax grab of obscene proportions.

It may be sugar plums for some.

It's a bloody great leaden chunk of coal in the toe of a Christmas stocking for the taxpayers.