Driving City Tax Increases

Where's Councillor Budget? Has he lost his claim to fame? How will he be praised now for all of his cost-cutting? Does it mean that he can now appear on Face-to-Face finally since there is nothing of substance that John Fairley can talk to him about?

How can he make a run for Mayor if he cannot show that he has kept tax increases down (Oh sorry, he said he was never going to do that. He must have been telling us the truth when he said that. Don't worry, I will remind him if he forgets). The Mayor has already said that the target is 3% increase (but it might be less to show how hard they worked. You know, from 7% to 3% to the final number. Applause, applause)

Does it mean that the Seniors get back their Tylenol tablets?

It looks like Admin has taken control of the Budget process again and that Councillor Budget may be out of a job without his marathon line by line budget meetings. I may have to come up with a new moniker for him. I have one but it will be for another time.

Thanks to Alan Halberstadt's BLOG on this one. He states:

• "Councillors in Big Sister Windsor haven’t even seen the full budget document, and here we are almost in March. We are told that administration, at this point, is facing a budget $27-million higher than the 2006 base, representing a seven-percent tax increase...
  
  Under the timelines being recommended Monday night, the budget will not be tabled until April 9, and won’t be deliberated by Council until April 16th. In other words, by the time Council sets a rate, one third of the year’s spending will already be done...
  
  I would suggest Mayor Francis and administration pre-determined long ago that the increase will be three to four percent this year, and Council will be powerless to do anything about it."

Why just last year, we had the Star gushing about the process:

• "It meant taking back control of the budget process from department heads."

And remember the line-by-line work that almost tore Council apart:

• "It was an incredibly gruelling process," Coun. Ken Lewenza Jr. said of the months of "incredibly passionate and incredibly emotional" budget talks.
  
  "It was unprecedented," said Francis, who thanked councillors and city administration for the hundreds of hours put into the budget process on top of their regular duties.
  
  Both the spending and the chopping advocates on council voted to support the budget...
  
  Brister said the budget was "acceptable" to those who demanded spending restraint, while one of his fiscal polar opposites, Lewenza, described the budget document as "great news for the community" and something he can justify to his own constituency."

In fact, by this time last year we had a budget completed. In 2005, it was completed in January.

Why not this year...Oh come on, we have an arena to pay for! How can you show a big tax increase at the same time that millions of extras have to be added on to arena costs. Councillor Postma would be in serious trouble if that happened with her "no new taxes because of the arena" boast. Why when Administration talked about challenges that had to be faced, there was not a word about the arena.

By the way, an early start on the budget is now a negative because it is difficult to definitively identify all possible budget impacts that far in advance (ie from fall 2006) . Things may change as more information becomes available. So now we can wait until a quarter of the year is over so that Administration gets what it wants and Council is effectively neutered. Again.

I told you the CAO runs Windsor with Eddie as his figure-head. I certainly hope John does not choose to leave Windsor for another job or else we would be in serious trouble without a leader.

Oh and remember what I told you about last year's election budget and what would happen this year. As Councillor Lewenza said:

• "We should be concerned since Councillor Lewenza has said about next year's budget "there's very little wiggle room in the [2006] budget and taxpayers should not expect to see the frugality of the last two budgets repeated next year. "This is probably the last go- around," he said, adding that there will be either higher tax hikes next year or a reduction in services."

Oh and there was confimation that the Tunnel dividend was going to be reduced by $2.2M

And you would not think that we were spending millions on an arena and that costs are sky-rocketing. Find the word "arena" in the Admin report or in the Star story. Instead learn that:

• "The biggest increase will be $8.4 million for previously negotiated wage, salary and benefit increases for city staff."

For my union friends at City Hall...that means you are going to lose staff when you negotiate your next agreement so prepare for a long strike. This is confirmation of what you were expecting so be warned.

NEW ADMINISTRATION WORD

Tell me, who uses the word "engage" the most? Who has set world records for using that word the most times in a sentence when answering Councillors' qustions? I'll let you answer that when watching Council meetings

However, I wanted to let you in on the 2007 buzz word. It is "driver."

In fact, Councillor Halberstadt has already been brainwashed by Admin. He said that "Really, administration is driving the boat" when talking about the budget process.

Listen for the word in the budget talks when they talk about "cost drivers." Then listen for it in the Customer Service item when they use the word when discussing "drivers of customer satisfaction."

Then there are CSP pillars/themes, priority statements, developing a "brand," systematic and sustainable infrastructure master plan, increase accountability of exemplary customer service we already provide (that was a mouthful), Solid Foundation option, Corporate Project Management Protocol, Responsible Effective Local Government, the results were triumphant and so on.

Frankly, with their jargon, they are "driving" me crazy!