BC Municipal Spending Watch – 3rd Edition, December 2010 – Released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Janet Irvine: Dec. 4, 2010
With respect to municipal spending in Nanaimo – At the Regular Meeting of Council held on November 8th, Council directed Staff to:
1. “start the process of a core service review” – amended motion carried as follows: “report back to council on the content and estimated time and cost of a core service review”; and
2. “report on the process of a zero based budget” – amended motion carried to include the wording: “for the 2012 budget year.”
A highly relevant report released this week by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business extends their analysis of municipal financial data from 2000 to 2008: “BC Municipal Spending Watch – 3rd Edition, December 2010″
http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/cfib-documents/rr3222.pdfSome interesting excerpts at pages 19 and 20:
“EXPENDITURES: CORE SERVICES vs. “NICE TO DO” SERVICES
What are core municipal services? Although this seems to be a very simple question, the definition of core municipal services is open to interpretation. The UBCM/ provincial government publication, Local Government in British Columbia—4th edition explains that there are functions mandated by the province and voluntary functions. Mandated functions can also include instructions from the province on how to organize these functions.”
“SALARIES AND BENEFITS OF EMPLOYEES
Public wages are the largest municipal operating budget expenditure. CFIB research comparing public and private sector wages and benefits shows that, on average in BC, municipal workers earn 10.4 per cent more than their private sector counterparts in the same job (see Figure 5.2). When you add in benefits, this premium soars to a shocking 34.9 per cent.”
SEE ALSO – SECTION 6: FEEDBACK
The CFIB makes a number of recommendations for provincial and municipal governments to try to rein in spending, including:
-limiting operational spending increases to population and inflation growth;
-freezing municipal wages until they are within five per cent of wages for equivalent positions in the private sector;
-using zero-based budgeting instead of the traditional budgeting process, which treats existing levels of spending as a given; and
-creating an independent municipal auditor general to oversee local government budgets and spending.
One would assume that Staff will be reporting back to Council on the core review and zero based budget directives sometime in 2011, which, of course, is the last year of this Council’s term. Although these Council directives are very worthy, 2011 is an election year, and one is left to wonder if decisions made by the present Council regarding these matters would be binding on the incoming Council. Does anyone know the answer to this?
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
Does this report take into account the long term trend to “download” the cost of services that used to be provided by the federal and provincial governments?
UBCM reaction was predicable. They say the CFIB does not understand the way municipalities SPEND and therefore the equation is invalid. What the UBCM response fails to say is the equation is set up for revenue not spending. The fundamentals of this report are the municipalities are requirihg revenue at a higher rate than the community can ulimtely afford………. i.e. a receipt for bankruptcy if not the community then the taxpayer. Different than business who must EARN their revenue, municipalities can LEGISLATE it and there is little we can do about it.
Wally: We have an upcoming opportunity to do something about it, i.e. to elect Councillors who have sufficient business savvy to recognize that a budget can be balanced by reducing expenditures just as well as by raising revenue. This does not require a businessman, but at least a homeowner who who can make hes/his own budget work. We need commitments to fiscal responsibility which are monitored by citizens in between elections as well as at election time.
Call me skeptical BUT, when 6 of our current members on council have the endorsement of both CUPE and the IAFF does that not give the appearance of a conflict when it comes to negotiating a labour agreement?
I wonder how council would deal with the ‘appearance’ of a conflict?
Jim –
The endorsement given by CUPE and/or the IAFF would influence the objective exercise of the official duties of those elected officials regarding their involvement with the negotiation of union contracts with the City. It would “warp” the judgment of those council members, who are elected to represent ALL taxpayers of the City, would it not?
There is a need for amendments to the legislation that governs municipal campaign financing.
seven of nine school board members also have CUPE endorsement. explains the overturn of the restructure of the schools in nanaimo.
local taxpayers lost millions from the provincial government which had already been approved.
But on the bright side, taxpayers do get to keep inefficient schools open.
The following excerpt from the above column, (submitted by me), which was posted to this Blog on December 4, 2010, relates to the Regular Council Meeting of November 8, 2010:
——————————————————————–
With respect to municipal spending in Nanaimo – At the Regular Meeting of Council held on November 8th, Council directed Staff to:
1. “start the process of a core service review” – amended motion carried as follows: “report back to council on the content and estimated time and cost of a core service review”; and
2. “report on the process of a zero based budget” – amended motion carried to include the wording: “for the 2012 budget year.”
——————————————————————–
What was the outcome of these Council directions? Merci beaucoup!
Janet: These are good questions and deserve an answer. I suggest that you seek a response either from the City Clerk, Ms. Harrison, and/or from one or more of our Councillors who can provide official information in this regard. I believe that we need to lean a little more on those who are paid to provide such answers. :-)
Please report back on what you find. Thanks.
11 October 2011 at 8pm – Ron Bolin said:
I believe that we need to lean a little more on those who are paid to provide such answers.
Agree with you, Ron! Will get back to you on this. :)
Can you tell me who has the endorsement of the unions?
Who paid for whose election will not be known until after the election is over. For those who ran in 2008, the sources of election funding can be found at:
http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/departments/Legislative-Services/4609/12679/CampaignDisclosure.html
As you review these figures you will note that there is fundamentally no grass roots funding. The big bucks come from the unions, business and developers, and self funding. I am not quite sure what to make of those folks who spent large amounts of their own money on getting themselves elected. Are they really so public spirited? Are they essentially buying an income stream? Or what?
Election spending and its sources for the recent by-election can be found at:
http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/departments/Legislative-Services/4609/2011Byelection/2011DisclosureDocs.html
Several current candidates ran in that by-election.
It is my understanding that the core review was voted down but a review of contract workers was given the go. As I have said in previous notes here I for one want to see the core review. It is my understanding that most staff are not given a yearly review but the quick looks good review and then their raise. But when the city HR department has 16 managers and one staff worker what can you expect!
While I may still have questions about the number of Staff in the HR department and how their loyalties might be divided, there are, unless there have been major additions since mid July, “only”12 members in that Department in three levels of whom 11 are management/exempt and of these only 2 are identified as managers. Looking after Staff is an important job and it needs to be done well. Whether this many Staff are warranted and the extent to which their loyalty is extended to Council and to Nanaimo taxpayers is a question which might be examined in a core review.
OCCUPY NANAIMO
Diane Krall Plaza, Saturday, 1100 hrs, October 15
I was told by a council person for what it’s worth that there are 16 mgmt in HR. One of the major functions of HR is to ensure that there are yearly reviews of all staff from senior managers down to the grass roots. If what I was told is true then why are these HR people not ensuring that the reviews are being done before the increases start to flow.