Budget Process or Christmas Wish List?

Remember when we were kids?  At Christmas time the teacher would hand out a sheet of paper and all the kids would write a letter to Santa.  All the letters were pretty much the same.  We'd feign interest about Mrs Claus and Rudolph.  We would assure Santa that we've been good over the course of the year and we would show our Christmas spirit by decorating the letter with hand drawn images of Christmas trees, candy canes and wreaths.  However, the real purpose behind the letter was to deliver the news to Santa Claus of our wish list for Christmas morning.

This Santa letter exercise was called to mind when I used the town of Newmarket's new "Budget Tool" (go to www.newmarket.ca).  This tool allows you enter in the assessed value of your home, and then slide targets back and forth to increase or decrease the amount you pay for specific items, such as road work, library services, and garbage pick up.  After you make your decision, the tool warns you that you may have reduced service levels (if you opt to pay less) or increased services (if you opt to pay more).  Perhaps unintentionally, the calculator is biased towards showing that drastically cutting services will only have a small financial reward to residents while increasing services will only cost each of us just a few dollars more each month.   

I would like to propose another way of reviewing the budget; it starts with the question, can we maintain our current level of service and yet, still reduce costs?  I am emphatic in the belief that this is possible.     

Let's refute the school of thought that economic austerity means immediate withdrawal of services.  Evidence shows otherwise, as the Government of Canada has just demonstrated.  Federally, it was possible to make $30 billion in expenditure cuts while experiencing no appreciable difference in the level of government services we receive on a day to day basis.  The federal government did this by finding greater efficiencies in their departments and laying off employees who became redundant.  Where programs had passed their best before expiry date, they were ceased.  Where head count was bloated, they were reduced.  Where spending was out of control, they were curtailed.  All in all, the majority of us felt no ill effects from these cuts. 

If the federal government can accomplish this feat, surely there is fat to be trimmed locally too.  Rather than ask citizens to draft up a Christmas list of services they would like to continue, perhaps a more fruitful exercise would be to ask Town of Newmarket department heads to demonstrate how they can maintain service levels while spending less and give bonuses and/or incentive pay to those managers who actually achieve their goals. 

My philosophy regarding salaries is simple.  I tend to ignore those who whinge about "Sunshine" lists.  If a department head has the ability through his management skills to save taxpayers seven figured sums, why do I care if we pay him/her a six figured salary and a significant bonus?  However, if the department head isn't able to demonstrate savings of tax payer money while retaining service levels, then his/her name should be on the top of the list of those to be laid off.  Just like anyone in the private sector, Sunshine list employees must be ready to show why they get paid the big bucks.       

First things get "personal" and then things get "stupid"

I waited a whole week to see if, and how, they would respond to this published letter:

http://www.yorkregion.com/opinion/letters/article/1503724--reconsider-re-naming-field

The allegation that the letter writer is making is very serious; because she has made her colleagues upset, did the honourable(?) members of Newmarket Council decide to back-track on their promise of support the re-naming in order to 'punish' Maddie Di Muccio and her husband? 

Here are the most salient points (keeping in mind, it doesn't matter whether you feel the sports field naming is warranted (as many do) or not (as the Era Banner doesn't):

1) Have they lost perspective of what they were voting on?  We're talking about naming a sports field, just one of the many sports fields located at the Ray Twinney Centre.  This is a compelling story and the vote should have been obvious (even for this bunch).  I have yet to see any Council member explain why he/she couldn't support this.  It seems like a total bone-head move not to favour this (even for this bunch).  If the letters in the Era and the Toronto Sun are any indication, this item has the public's attention.  (Here is another letter in the Era:  http://www.yorkregion.com/opinion/letters/article/1503725--least-we-can-do-is-honour-youth-with-field )

2) The letter writer claims that Councillors had previously promised him to see this through.  A record of broken promises will indeed break political careers.  Again, why is there a cone of silence around this?  It seems to be political suicide not to explain their about-face to the public.

3) I can't think of a politician alive who would let allegations like these ones made by the letter writer just ferment in the public. It begs the question, is the letter writer on to something here?

Either the Mayor and these Councillors have totally given up all hope for re-election (and yes, issues like these become BIG issues at election time.  Voters want leaders who are compassionate not heartless), or they have become absolutely blinded by their hatred of the Ward 6 Councillor.

So Newmarket, you get to decide.  Are our esteemed(?) Council members "Heartless" or "Hateful".  Either way, I don't think they should be given the benefit of the doubt. 

If you're a cowboy, and you're dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine

These wise words are from "Jack Handey Deep Thoughts".  These are the words that came to my mind when I read this news item:

@teresalatchford: #Newmarket council vote unanmiously to direct staff to retain an integrity commish to investigate possible breach of code, confidentiality

 

 

Strengthen Oversight of Mayor and Council

It seems that at every turn, some Councillors are putting up roadblocks against good governance.  Transparency, accountability, openness may seem to be lacking substance in the opinion of some Newmarket politicians, (ahem, Regional Councillor Taylor), but it would be very stupid to overlook what these values mean to Newmarket residents. 

I had an opportunity to look at information from the Ombudsman's Office and/or Auditor General's office for other provinces in Canada as well as our own.  The complaints coming against municipal councils/ councillors seem at first to be varied.  Some complaints dealt with questionable spending.  Other complaints focused on apparent conflicts of interests.  I saw complaints concerning record keeping, tendering for municipal projects, and even how the municipal government sold off it's surplus vehicles.  On the surface, there appears to be little connection but I think the underlying issue is the same in each case - a lack of transparency and accountability. 

What I saw when looking at these cases was clear evidence that the complainants were correct.  Upon investigation, the provincial investigator found instances of poor decision making, questionable accounting, and a disregard for transparency.  Having a case of outright fraud is very rare but don't underestimate the millions of taxpayers money that is wasted through lax or inadequate governance. 

Unfortunately there are very few places for residents to go for help if they have a problem with the governance at Newmarket Town Hall.  For example, when a Richmond Hill Councillor sent in a bill for his new set of golf clubs, the Mayor suggested that it was no business of the Town to address his poor judgment.  Instead, the Mayor referred the matter to voters (with years to go until the next election).  To be forced to wait four years until election time before getting a chance to give him the boot seems to be a weakness in our system.  Unlike in the old days when people expected common decency from those in public office, today we can't rely on a politician to have the integrity to resign when he finds himself in the hoosegow.  (Ahem, Councillor Emanuel). 

I would like to see a mandate coming from the Province requiring the Regional Government to set up a municipal audit unit.  The auditing unit would be tasked with showing up unannounced to conduct an audit of each municipality and make sure that the local government is operating to the best governance standards. 

Here are a few items that the Regional audit unit could investigate:

1) Complaints from residents about the professional conduct of any municipal politician
2) Confirming the results of the year end audits of the municipality.  The year end audits rarely find any issues with the town because the town employees know when the audit is going to happen.  If the audit is a surprise visit, it's harder to sweep certain things under the rug.
3) Reviewing and commenting on the adequacy of certain reserving practices
4) Overseeing complaints concerning the tendering policies of the municipality to ensure transparency
5) Auditing in camera meetings (by actually attending the session) to ensure conformity to the municipality's policies
6) Auditing the police department, fire department, municipally owned electrical utilities, public libraries, public transit and other quasi-autonomous municipal entities to ensure good governance and transparency.

Here are just a few benefits of having a Regional audit unit:

1) Greater public transparency because municipal audit reports would be published and available to the public.  This gives the public improved information when voting.  For example, when a Mayor says he is a good manager, the public will have an unbiased assessment of the Mayor's management ability to be able to judge his opinion.
2) Identify weaknesses and best practices from around the region.  With audits, municipalities will have an opportunity to see where they are lagging or how they can learn from their neighbours.
3) Avoid a lackadaisical attitude towards good governance.  A surprise audit is a great way to motivate town employees to do their best every day. 
4) An opportunity to fix problems right away.  Asking residents to wait four years to improve the governance of their municipality through an election just doesn't make sense.  Let's give residents a much quicker response mechanism allow us to address a problem early on. 
5) Avoid fraud and other misconducts.  This should be the responsibility of every municipal leader but very few are able to police themselves.  A Regional audit unit can detect and report misdeeds and protect the residents from misappropriation of taxpayer money.  The greatest opportunity of fraud occurs during in camera sessions  when the public and media are barred from attending which is why monitoring the goings-ons of these meetings is so important. 

A specialized, York Regional auditing unit makes a lot of sense.  Obviously, an audit alone is not enough.  The mandate should also require the municipality to respond to the auditing unit's report allowing residents to gauge the performance of the Mayor and Council before an election which can only improve our democracy.  As we have seen in Newmarket, when too many items are being discussed in camera, the public perception is one of distrust and suspicion.  Pull back the curtain and let a well respected auditing team review and report back to the public to re-establish faith in the municipal government.