What's happening with your new council.

Again I would like to thank all those people that supported me through the election. Can't believe it as been three weeks since the election already.

Just an update on what as happened so far some issues we have talked about previously and some new one's. On Oct 29th we were sworn in to office and we divided up the committee's, not everybody got everything they wanted but I think council did a fairly good job of splitting up the work load and we all agreed that if somewhere down the road members of council wish to move around we would look at that.
At the meeting of the 29th I also made a motion for administration to bring back information for council on the following questions:

1. Provide Council with the complete MCNP budget. Including all GL accounts, and including Municipal Reserves.

2.         2. Provide Council with all Administration employment contracts along with their job descriptions for each and evaluations for the last two years.

3. Provide Council with all CUPE job descriptions.

4. Provide Council with an update on all outstanding CUPE grievances.

5. Provide Council with a list of all ongoing litigation and legal issues currently facing the Municipality and all legal advice, if any, which was provided to the municipality on these subjects.

6.         6. Provide Council with an update on the Wolfstone development and RV Park project, including any legal opinions and possible solutions.

7.         7. Provide Council with an update on the Provincial Flood Recovery Program and what monies have been received and how they have been dispersed.     

At that point administration asked to have until the Nov 19 meeting to bring forth this information which council was fine with, recognizing this is a substantial amount of information. So I look forward to seeing the answers next week.  

            Now to the meeting of November 5, some highlights for me: (you can access council packages and minutes at the following address)

            http://www.crowsnestpass.com/municipal-government/council/council-packages-and-minutes 

            Financial Update: 

            I was very surprised to see that almost $1.3 million is owed in back taxes, we were told that the high penalties on arrears would solve this problem.

            We have a lot of money in the bank most of which is grant money that as not been spent because most of our capital budget have not been completed (Out of a projected $6.2 million, just under $1 million was completed as of Oct 30,2013.

            Was surprised to see that our latest study (Recreation Feasibility) is costing us $90,000.

            Also $96,000 as already been spent on the Entrance signs. I am looking forward to receiving a lot more financial information over the next few months. 

           Next big item on the agenda was the hiring of an HR Administrator: It is no secret that the labor relations at the municipality are the worse they have ever been, and I believe this council fully understands the importance of fixing this situation. For years the municipality had good relations with CUPE. So on Nov 5 we are asked to fix the legacy issue of poor labor relations by the CAO by approving the filling of this position. Council had a number of concerns first of all the size of our administration was an issue both prior and during the election. (Just as the meeting started we were introduced to our new Director of Protective and Community Services). We must keep in mind that the organization chart for the municipality was the previous council's chart based on their priorities and desires not this council's. Second council was concerned as to how we were going to pay for this position, administration told us there was money in the budget to cover the position until the end of the year. What happens in 2014? the response was we will find the money in the budget, who hires somebody in November and then figures out how you pay for them later? Last issue administrations position was that a big part of the reason this position was justified was due to the recent Workplace Assessment that was jointly conducted by management and CUPE, council was not supplied with the original copy of this report.

            Update on the Disaster Recovery program we have received $1.8 million so far from the province our Public Works Dept and Engineering firm have determined that the cost of fixing all the eligible damage is around $4.3 million. They explained the process of bureaucratic red tape that the municipality as to go through, the Mayor explained that he as met other communities leaders where work as already begun and we are sitting in a position of not seeing anything done until the spring. We anticipate that administration will be updating us on a regular basis on this very important issue.

           Council meeting schedules, it was agreed that council meeting will be held the first and third Tuesday of each month, with the G+P being held on the second Tuesday of each month all meeting starting at 7pm.

           Very important issue of note the SSRP (South Saskatchewan Regional Plan) if you are interested there is an open house in Pincher Creek on Nov 26 from 4:30 to 7:30 at the community hall, plus you can access the plan and provide input right up to Jan 15 at the following address. https://landuse.alberta.ca/RegionalPlans/SouthSaskatchewanRegion/Pages/default.aspx

            Finally we as council were informed by Mr Myron Thompson during the In Camera portion of our meeting that he would be retiring from his position as CAO with his last day of work being Dec 20th, with his vacation and time off owed he will paid by the municipality until Feb 5th. 

           This announcement though surprising will allow both parties to pursue other options moving forward. 

          Finally I appreciate the encouragement and the positive attitude being shown to me by the public almost every where I go. There are a lot of questions being asked by both the public and council, there is a lot of information gathering on the part of your new council. Let's keep in mind that six members of this new council have never sat on a council previously. Personally I am very hopeful I think the public made some very good choices, I think we have a group of people that are very intelligent, respectful of the community and will work very well together. Will we all be on the same page all the time? not a chance, on Nov 5 we did not finish the public part of the meeting until 10pm. It's been a long time since I have seen that, lot's of good healthy debate. 

     

  

L

S

Back taxes property sales and the 52% solution

Remember when the imposition of the 52% tax penalty was going to be the lever that would push all those nasty people in the Crowsnest Pass that were delinquent on their taxes to pay up.

Well if you think it worked check out the Alberta Gazette at http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/gazette/2012/pdf/16_Aug31_Part1.pdf   pages 1017-1028 there are 294 properties available.

Want to be late this is what it will cost you. Fair or not?.

First of all I have to say I agree in theory everybody should pay their taxes on time plus their credit card bills, bank loans, utility bills etc, etc.

Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and sometimes for whatever reason people can’t pay their bills on time. That is why banks, credit cards, utilities and yes various levels of government (Including municipalities) get to charge penalties. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that if I am not going to pay a bill on time it should cost me more.

The issue is always are the rates being charged fair? How do we determine fair? Well in my mind you do it by comparing to what other people in the same field charge.

If it’s a credit card and the average rate is 10% I don’t have a problem being charged 10%. If it’s a utility company and the average late charge is 2% I don’t mind being charged (hold on) 2%.

So how does our municipalities 52% rate for being late compare? Is it fair? Let’s take a look at what the competition (other municipalities) are charging.

Town of Pincher Creek 22%

Didsbury 18%

City of Red Deer 12%

Calgary 14%

Gibbons 26%

County of St Paul 3%

MD of Bonnyville 10%

MD of Greenview 18%

Ponoka 28%

Rocky View County 12%

Edmonton 15%

Athabasca 12%

Mayerthorpe 12%

Turner Valley 12%

Bashaw 12%

Taber 12%

Sylvan Lake 14%

Olds 18%

Two Hills 12%

County of Wetaskiwin 13%

Fort Saskatchewan 18%

Coalhurst 18%

Vermillion 12%

County of Ponoka 22%

Strathcona County 22%

Brooks 26%

That’s just 26 examples of municipalities that I could find, on average they are charging 15.9%. Now I am sure there are municipalities out there charging higher and lower rates if somebody wants to send me those examples I would gladly add them and adjust the average number accordingly. Do I think there is any way possible to bring that 15.9% average any where close to our 52%. I think the question of fairness has been answered.   

The cash grab is under way (coming soon)

Everybody around town is asking how can the municipality pay for all these new positions?
Well first of all folks its not the municipality paying for all these new positions its us "the taxpayers" on this post I am going to track the various "cash grabs" that have taken place for this financial year. Plus any that I hear council is considering, so fasten your seat belts sit back and read. Remember if you are not prepared to speak out be prepare to "pay", silence a politicians best friend.

Cash Grab #1.
On Sept 21,2011 I first reported about Franchise Fees those are charges added on to your Hydro and Gas bills that are a source of revenue for the Municipality.
Cost to the taxpayers Hydro $147,823, Gas $47,638  Total cash grab of $195,461

Cash Grab #2
Back tax penalties went from 21% to 55%, outstanding taxes October 2011 $1,040,000, outstanding back taxes February 2012 $880,000 massive penalty increase forced a whooping 15% of back taxes to be paid. I suspect in line with any other year. At 55% increase each year who will be able to pay them and who will purchase all these properties when they go up for back tax sales?.

Proposed Cash Grab #3
Business Licenses presently $75 each, will rise $25 per year starting in 2013 to double by 2015. Cash Grab  of $11,675 per year  

Proposed Cash Grab #4
Safety Code Fee/Electrical and Plumbing Permits Increase estimated cash grab for 2012 $24-26,000

Proposed Cash Grab #5
Cemetery Fees cash grab $2500 per year




Cash grabs to come? lets not forget the big ones your municipal taxes and municipal utilities.

Word on the street is that the new  Manager for the Office is starting on March 12 and the Director of Community and Protective services position is now advertised. Negotiations between the Municipality and Cupe are ongoing after a marathon two day bargaining session in February they do not meet again until March 19th.  

The drive to be the lean mean municipality continues, Coleman/Blairmore shop consolidation I was told this morning its still on going.



 

Random Thoughts from the Crowsnest Pass

Outstanding taxes: Remember all that discussion about the $1,044,000 that was outstanding in taxes back in early November. The stress that it was putting on the municipal cash flow. Forcing council to up the tax penalty from 21% to 52%, which would solve the problem by encouraging people to catch up fast.

Remember my comments on this issue check them out at:
http://crowsnestpasshome.blogspot.com/2011/12/property-tax-penalties-numbers.html

Council was informed at the G+P meeting on Jan 24 that surprisingly only 17% of those back taxes have been paid. (Check the numbers from any other year I would expect the 17% is very typical). There is still $870,000 outstanding and even more surprisingly 67% of that total is owed by Non-residential taxpayers.


Good News story, Economic update: This is what is so great about the Internet it is a great tool to communicate. On Councilor Gallant’s blog, he posts some very interesting information regarding all the exciting “new” businesses that have opened in the Pass since the beginning of his term.
Check it out for yourself at: http://briangallant.ca/wordpress/2012/01/23/celebrate-businesses-old-and-new/
Road Closure last week: Felt badly for anybody that was stranded in the Pass, I expected a much larger problem with our largest hotel shut down for the winter (50 rooms not available). Amazingly two things happened many people heading this way knew about the road conditions so did not come. Which was evident by the fact that there were still hotel rooms available at 8pm that night and as you can read in the Promoter’s editorial, today people pulled together and looked after those that needed assistance.

I thought Sparwood would have been much worse with the hundreds of miners trapped over there, but they did what the Pass and most communities do in these types of situations they pulled together.
http://www.elkvalleyherald.ca/index3.htm despite having much larger numbers of people trapped than we did, only 21 people had to sleep on a cot at the recreation centre.

Thunder in the Valley: This is Councilor Saindon’s project he stated this week that the committee would be meeting in council chambers on the 30th, with the RCMP. He also reported that the committee as now had three meeting and is moving forward; anybody that is interested is welcome to attend the meeting. In conjunction with that, Mayor Decoux started reading a letter from the Blairmore Fireworks committee requesting a meeting with council at the Blairmore Fire Hall, Mayor Decoux stated that if they wished to meet with council they could come as a delegation in front of council.
Sad to read that unless some new volunteers step forward there will not be a show and shine this year, I know many people including myself that really enjoyed that.

Stupid story of the week: I was confronted this morning by an older fellow who was really anger because somebody had “alleged” that previous council had spent $1 million moving the tenants from the Crowsnest Centre to the MDM. I asked him three things; one do you or anybody else have any kind of evidence to substantiate that number. Two was the source of this information the same one that “alleged” that we would lose our Food Bank and Education Consortium. Three this council is now entering its second budget process, it will have its second opportunity to put the funding in place if the centre is truly such a high priority for this community.

Cost of consultants: Sounds like we the taxpayers are going to receive this information on Councilor Gallant’s blog today in a response to a question about the cost of consultants he replies with the following:

“I do not know offhand how much we spent on consultants. We need to hire professionals for specific projects from time to time and I suspect it’s no higher than any other year. I believe we paid approximately $5,000 to have the Task Force document written but I could be wrong since I do not have the information here. There was also a small gift given to the members of the task force of approximately $200 each, and they had travel expenses covered by the municipality. All of this information will be available in March when we receive our audited financial statements. If you want it earlier, please contact Finance at the municipal office.

Stream lining of the municipal office: I hear through the grapevine that the new Director of Public Works, Engineering and planning will be commencing his duties shortly.

Questions are being asked in the Crowsnest Pass.

Often I have people ask me questions about the political situation in the Crowsnest Pass. So I will take the time to address the most common questions being asked over the last couple of months.

What is your opinion of this new schedule for council meetings?

Since Mayor Decoux and his group of councilors took over there as been 55 meeting of council (Including Council, G+P, Special meeting, Organizational etc up to December 6th 2011)
The average duration of those meeting has been 2 hours and 28 minutes of which 58 minutes on average have been in camera. That means the average resident has had the opportunity to see their council at work making the decisions that impact every one of us for a grand total of six hours a month.
Now I know that most people don't go to council meeting, lets face it the majority of people don't vote.
Why not lessen the number of elections?

But that's not the point, the public must have the opportunity if they so choose to see their council at work, in a community that has a lot of people that work 12 hour shifts and out of town the opportunity must be provided.  
Previous council met every Tuesday (as recommended by the Cuff report) this gave every person four opportunities a month to drop by the municipal office and see their council at work if they wished.

During December, January and now February council has been testing a schedule where they meet on only two days a month one day for just a council meeting. A second day for a G+P meeting in the afternoon and then a council meeting at night. Depending on shift schedules a person may never have the opportunity to attend a meeting.

Is their a lot of debate at the council meeting?

I don't think so, I keep telling people to come to a meeting and check it out for themselves. Some more interesting numbers,  most of us know that you can't make motions In Camera at the average meeting there are 14 motions made, council is only in the public realm for 90 minutes a meeting that means on average a motion is being made every six minutes. Would anybody consider there to be a lot of debate?

Do you feel the strategic plan as been successful?

I respond with what do you think? outside of the Bellevue Library closing, name me one other change. Believe it or not I still get people saying well they consolidated the Blairmore/Coleman shop.

How much are we spending on consultants?

That comes up again and again I am going to request those numbers soon from the municipality, will I be provided them who knows.

Are my taxes going up this year?

My answer is I believe so, but I always caution don't just watch your taxes. Follow franchise fees, user fees, etc. 

Do you think the back tax rate increase had a significant effect on the amount of outstanding back taxes?

Financial statements will be out near the end of April I will compare this years numbers with last.

Just some things to think about and hopefully create some debate

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!

River Run Vistas Investors Meeting Update

I see my fellow blogger beat me to it  http://blog.johnprince.ca/ but here it is the audio from the River Run Vistas Meeting on the weekend.www.adita.com/mintoft/mintoft.html

I do feel bad for the investors, I hope they can come up with a resolve that works for them and gets some of their money back. Mr Mintoft comes across as a very smooth talking sales man but then so did the two fellows he used to be in business with, (well technically still is). But the investors will do whats best for them, there is one part of the tape where it sounds like he is going to talk to the municipality about the outstanding taxes. That concerns me especially now the bylaw to increase the penalties on back taxes as gone through first reading. Will the old timers on a fixed income be given a break on those outstanding taxes because they made some poor choices.

The Shell Game

On November 17, I wrote this post: http://crowsnestpasshome.blogspot.com/2011/11/financing-councils-dreams-another-pot.html

Over the last week, I have heard many statements regarding the issue of back taxes:

Lets address some of these comments going back to my original post, remember I said in my mind there are three catergories of taxpayers in arrears.

One being the 50-60% that is owed by a developer, second the people that miss the deadline for one reason or another and have no incentive to pay until the end of the year and third the people that just can’t or struggle to pay.

So back to the comments being made:

1- "The current 10% penalty is one of the lowest in the province and hardly a deterrent". First of all that’s just plain not true if you don’t pay your taxes you get nailed with 10% in June and a further 10% Jan 1st. (By my math that’s 20%)

2- “People are using there money elsewhere by not paying their taxes”. Certainly would not make a lot of sense to be delinquent on a bill that I am going to be charged 20% interest on versus investing the cash in a term deposit at 1-2%.

3- “Yes, some of those unpaid taxes are from developers such as RiverRun etc” How do we determine that? Maybe the problem as been going on for years?. In the audited municipal financial statements there is a section called notes, under that is a sub section titled “Taxes and Grants in place of Taxes receivable” lets look at the last five years.

• 2006-Total $203,669

• 2007-Total $244,727

• 2008-Total $268,400

• 2009-Total $357.519

• 2010-Total $570,581



Notice the numbers don’t really take a big jump until 2009 I think that really reinforces my argument that 50-60% of the arrears are owed by a developer, spilt 2010’s number in half and your almost back to the 2008 number.

4-“ but we have numerous residents who play the shell game every year.” “Numerous” that’s a fairly harsh word, the municipality sends out at least 4500 tax notices a year in my six years on council there was years we saw alarmingly high numbers of people faced with tax sales for being three years behind. Some years as high as 5 or 6. Yes everybody should pay their bills on time but we are not even talking about 1% of our taxpayers going to a tax sale we are talking about one tenth of one per cent. I think once you pull out the number owed by that one developer above you will find that we are very comparative to other communties in Alberta in addition to the historical number for the Crowsnest Pass.

5-Lets assume for a moment we became that unique municipality where everybody paid there taxes on time where would that traditional $40-50,000 in interest income come from?

Financing councils dreams (Another Pot of Gold)

My fellow blogger Mr Prince has posted an article regarding the issue of taxes in arrears http://blog.johnprince.ca/ . At the public forum on November 9th the Mayor raised the issue of taxes in arrears, specifically the fact that this year there is over $1,040,000 outstanding. Then he went on to talk about how some people are consistently year after year behind on their taxes (which is not illegal) and stated that if they are going to continue to do this it is going to cost them more and more.
Presently if your taxes are not payed on time you get hit with a 10% penalty on June 1st plus a further 10% on January 1st, (Yes that's 20% per year) it sounds like the Mayor's intention is to increase that.

First impression is this is simple everybody should pay their taxes on time and if they don't make them pay.
It's never that simple.

I suspect that probably 50-60% of the outstanding back taxes are owned by developers that will never see the light of day again, slap them with 30-40-50% whatever you like its not going to get the bill paid they will just owe the municipality more. That issue will ultimately get resolved in a back tax sale. (Maybe if somebody bids on the property the only thing that changes by charging that group more is the need to recover a greater amount of dollars at the sale)

The second issue is sometimes you have either residential or business owners that for one reason or another miss the deadline by a matter of days. That's a problem with having a set date that you are charged 10-15-20% if you have not paid by that date, why would you pay before December 31st. If I know that I have been charged the penalty anyway why would I not hold on to my money for an extra six months its not going to cost me any more. There is no Incentive to pay once you have missed the deadline why not charge the 10% on the due date and then discount the penalty if you come in prior to the next deadline.

The next issue and this gets back to the fundamental issue in the Crowsnest Pass the average home owner is now paying roughly $2000 a year in taxes plus close to another $65 a month in Water/Sewer/Garbage plus your utility bills are going up another $5 a month on January 1st. Add all those things together you come up with $237 per month, lets not lose site of probably 60% of our homeowners live on a fixed income.
AISH pays $1188 per month, we have a lot of seniors living on less than $30,000 a year we have reached the point where they are spending 10% of their income just on maintaining the municipality.

So in my opinion you have three groups of late taxpayers:
One being the development company that will only pay its taxes through a tax sale.
Two those that for what ever reason are late on their taxes and really have no incentive to pay prior to the next deadline.
Three those that for either economic or financial reasons just can't keep up.

So if council wishes to increase the rates I can think of only one group above that its really going to have an impact on.

There is no big pot of gold here that's going to finance all those great ideas that were brought up last week and many years prior.