Rhino's Ramblings - A Budget From Another Dimension
By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary
The COVID - 19 pandemic may have dominated the news for most of 2020 but as we move into December the talk locally has slipped from one of pandemic to one of how can residents who have been negatively impacted by the pandemic afford the proposed City property tax increases?
It is a very tough question when in reality you have people who have suffered through the pandemic in the real private sector world having money taken from their wallets by a City Administration which were on an protected financial island of zero pay cuts throughout 2020. Sure there were staffing cuts within the City but none of them were suffered by upper administration members. The cash kept coming.
It is a tough situation for more than a few people I have spoken to over the past couple of weeks who say “everyone working for the City plus Council needs to take a pay cut” but that is something easier said than done.
For Administration there has been a job re-evaluation with resultant pay alterations. As a result of the re-evaluation a select group of Administration is set to receive some healthy pay increases. Increases that many will argue in light of the pandemic should actually be pay reductions.
The same goes for the unionized staff employees. They have a rock solid contract with the City and there are also going to be some job re-evaluations to be made which could potentially end up with more than a couple of people receiving pay increases during a pandemic.
Oh the madness people might say but try to remember we are talking about the civil service here.
Something is going to have to give in many people’s minds and that entails either the City cut programs and shed staff or there needs to be major changes in how the City funds its operations.
It is either through cutting staff and programs - something we are told residents do not want to see - increasing taxes - something most say they cannot handle this year - or Council does something shocking and creative such as not funding the equipment reserves either fully or partially this year.
Give property tax payers a break at a time where they have lost money due to the COVID - 19 pandemic.
“They can’t get blood from a stone ”
Those great coveted reserves we are told we need to continually be added to might have to not be so funded, if funded at all, this coming year. Taxpayers cannot afford it.
It is not likely something Council is going to like see happening but as the Lunch Bucket Council looks at how they handle the pandemic and tough times many have faced at home it may well be the only way that the City is going to bring down a realistic tax rate is to abandon some or all of their reserve policy for 2021.
As someone told me “they don’t need to build up rainy day reserves when it is pouring outside.”
Others are even going so far to point to City Manager Jim Puffalt’s words that there has been a major reduction in cast iron water main breaks and thus we have turned the curve and can now put our funds from repairs into replacement. It all sounds so enthusiastic until you take a look at the weather we have been having this past year and how it is weather which favours less water main breaks.
I only need to look at the newer plastic pipe in my basement and how it is continually turning a reddish rusty colour to remind me that there are likely more breaks on the way. It is a colour people are seeing more and more in their water all of the time.
The same is true when it comes to the elusive vaccine for COVID - 19 and how people should be vaccinated by September that the City Manager has floated as a balloon of hope. If you read the documents SUN newspapers recently acquired the best case scenario is for those wanting to be vaccinated is by the end of 2021 that hope quickly diminishes.
Although this is in no way an accurate portrayal of the structure of the City’s reserves there is a feeling by many within the community we no longer need to be stashing so much money away when we need the money right now.
It is time to stop seeking property taxpayers as a bottomless stash of cash.
The reserves are now said to be earning anywhere from 4.25 to over 7.10 percent and as such they should be self financing and taxes no longer need to be collected to fund them or at least not to the extent they are at the present time is what I am starting to hear from more than a few Council watchers,
It is an argument of survival at the present time with an Administration not willing to tighten the belt.. In fact if you look at what is once again called a “status quo” budget you are going to see all kinds of additional proposals from Administration to increase the Operating Budget even more. Increases that if you really want to look at it if approved are in fact not a status quo at all. Increases potentially costing millions of dollars.
In a year where local charities and businesses are reporting people are not spending as much and they have had to make adjustments City Hall seems to have lost that message. We have City Hall advocating for a status quo budget that I am sorry is not something most people are going to agree with.
Is it just me to think that something is out of synch here and it does not seem to be in favour of the majority of property taxpayers? And what will the Lunch Bucket Brigade of a Council do about it?
It may not be what Administration wants but for most people 2021 is going to be yet another year of belt tightening with the hopes of better times ahead something the 2021 Budget for many residents simply ignores.