The drive to seven is on. Paying for it.

After a year of task forces, strategic planning, creation of policy and procedures.
We learnt just a few weeks back that the municipality has been stream lined from the previous cumbersome structure of four departments each with a director reporting to the CAO for a total administration team of five people.
Down to a thrifty three departments with a team of up to six administrators reporting to a CAO for a total administration team of seven people.  

Today I see the next step to the drive to seven is in motion the Director of Planning-Engineering and Operations has been posted. http://www.aamdc.com/classifieds/jobs/guest/detailjob/141-director-of-planning-engineering-and-operations

People keep asking me around town how are they going to pay for all of these positions plus the strategic plan.
I see a number of ways they are going to achieve this.

1. The strategic plan some of those issues are a one time cost so they need to find some easily accessible money. (Back taxes with the big jump in penalties they are anticipating great globs of money to flow in next year prior to those penalties kicking in)

2. Savings from the collective agreement the contract with CUPE is up on January 31st, it was not by accident that Councilor Mitchell was replaced with Councilor Saindon on the bargaining committee I suspect they will probably bring in a high priced lawyer or consultant to assist in this process. There is potentially large savings in the collective agreement the only problem is you have to get the folks sitting on the other side to agree to those changes.

3. The perpetual money generators (more often referred to as taxpayers) the message as already been sent with the increase in franchise fees, ($200,000 per year) and a tax increase last spring of 2% that most people anticipated to be zero.

4. User fees I anticipate that a lot of the fees that people use to pay for various municipal services will be increased.

5. Funding for external groups, many organizations receive funding from the municipality; Museum, Allied arts, Underground mine, Women's Centre etc etc I think you will see less funding for these types of groups.

6. New assessment most people don't realize that every year new assessment increases the tax base by 1-2% which should easily in today's economy cover any cost of living increases the municipality incurs.

It will be interesting six months from now to look back at this list and see how accurate my predictions were!

Tax Increases in the Crowsnest Pass

Recently ran a poll on what would be a reasonable tax increase for 2011, offered up six options on what in my mind would provide an opportunity to cover all ends of the spectrum.

They were, with the corresponding results

0-1% 6 votes 10%
1-2% 7 votes 12%
2-3% 7 votes 12%
3-4% 6 votes 10%
4% or greater 3 votes 5%
Get creative and cut taxes 27 votes 48%

Well from amongst the people that spoke here, the message is loud and clear.

Why is this relevant? for the following reasons: Tuesday Night Jan 18th Mayor Decoux asked council at least twice, "does council feel that they were elected to maintain the status quo, or to bring change to the municipality"

If you read my post on the meeting Councilor Saje offered up change in the form of a budget with some different ideas. Councilor Saje also spoke about how our population and tax base continues to decrease, but our spending goes up and up.

Councilor Saje also spoke about our organizational structure, why does the Pass have a Financial Department and an HR Department, when most other municipalities group the two together?

Councilor Saindon talked about the need to increase user fees, spoke to how the general public can no longer be expected to support programs that only 20% of the public uses. He also addressed the issue of performance of our various facilities.

Councilor Gallant also raised the issue of the Albert Stella arena how it brings in so little revenue versus its costs to operate, he also stated that there is no greater deterrent to bringing in new people and increased tax base than municipal tax increases.

Mayor Decoux stated that positions taken regarding no tax increases are very short sighted, that in the long term you need dollars to invest in the infrastructure of the municipality, or people will go else where, where the streets are all paved and facilities are provided.

Administration responded by making the case that the municipality needs to hire "more" people to find the efficiencies, so that in time as attrition takes place the positions at the municipality will "change" and where possible those efficiencies that the new people find will take place "in time".

Councilor Saje in his motion proposed that operating costs of some departments be reduced by 7%, in a previous post I stated that if you want to find real efficiency improvements that is the way to do it.
If council attempts to "find" the inefficiencies the debate between them and administration will go on forever, give administration clear direction and goals and let the people that do the job every day find the inefficiencies.


Status Quo, versus change, versus being creative.

As far as the 2011 budget, I clearly heard on one hand Councilors Saindon, Saje and Gallant talking about zero tax increases.
On the other hand I heard Mayor Decoux, Councilors Mitchell, Londsbury, and Gail talking about tax increases.