Are Municipal taxes just going to keep going up, up, up? We've heard the talk about services possibly being cut and that current level of property tax increases are not sustainable. What can be cut from Municipal budgets without causing major harm to the community? Even with cuts in services will taxes keep going up?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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41 opinions/comments:
Is it really true that North Vancouver has made no cuts in thirty years? If so they must be the onlye government entity at any level in North America to claim that distinction.
I can't think of any organization, including municipal governments, who haven't felt moved to make cut after cut after cut in the last few decades, to the point where any easy "fat" is long gone and essential services are being eliminated in the name of "fiscal responsibility.
Just cause the Fraser Institute says it, doesn't make it so.
Don't know whether that's true or not. Seems like it could be a likelihood even from my rather limited following of District politics this past decade. I've never been aware of any cuts that's for sure, just tax increases with services 'staying the same'.
I say a a forensic audit on the LEC. Shake the tree and see what falls out.
The city has made cuts in the past, but it was due to high wage increases to CUPE and Administrators and also miscalculations on revenue projections such the provincially imposed reduction on waterfront taxation. However generally speaking taxes have gone up every year and budgets have increased every year along with costs. New departments have been created, additional staff in non essential service areas have been hired and added.
A large part of the reason in the last 5 years is that District Council has told their Finance Department to assume there will be no cuts.
I've spoken at the Budget meetings several times on the general subject that that assumption should be dropped because (1) who knows if a particular service is still needed? (2) who knows if a particular service is best provided by District or someone else?
The point is that if you assume 'no cuts' the above questions can't be asked. So over the last few years these questions HAVEN'T been asked.
I'm glad to see David Stuart has recently said he now expects those questions to be asked.
By the way the School Board has said that Fromme Elementary (which is the oldest elementary in Lynn Valley) is being considered for closure. I'm surprised that that seems to be the only school being discussed since SD44's statistics show that the ONLY schools with enrollment up over the past 5-10 years are the ones which enlarged their catchment areas after adjacent schools have been closed.
I'm also surprised no school east of Seymour has been considered since all of them are well below capacity. I haven't seen this year's stats but given last year's numbers it's hard to imagine Blueridge, Seymour Heights and Plymouth all continuing as is.
The "easy "fat is long gone"! An astonishing claim.
For starters, look at the spending on consulting fees, a wonderful instance of which was discussed this Monday at District Council.
$350,000 plus for a bunch of platitudes. Coun Nixon was appalled and rightly so.
To make matters worse, the presenters said with satisfaction that half of another $40000 spent on this came from B.C.Hyrdo.
It is of some interest to me that the consulting business thrives mostly in areas such as environmental consulting where there is no such thing as expertise. Anyone who can master the bafflegab can hang out a shingle and do quite well.
Dennis Bevington
If NV has avoided the last two decades of neo-con cuts you've been pretty fortunate!
"(1) who knows if a particular service is still needed? (2) who knows if a particular service is best provided by District or someone else?"
And there's the rub Lyle, are such things decided via a reasonably objective measure, or by the prevailing political winds?
Both BC (in the bad ol' Bennett/Vanderzalm days) and Ontario (Harris) had to live through wholesale cuts to services and facilities, many of which turned out to be equally wholesale failures.
Instead of political knee-jerk reactionaries we need some thoughtful and principled leadership. Jeffery Simpson has a nice column in today's Globe that examines that vacuum.
Then again, if Stock Day has taken to carrying a "murse" maybe we should all just abandon hope.
"For starters, look at the spending on consulting fees, a wonderful instance of which was discussed this Monday at District Council."
I don't know the details, but often in government "consulting" is code for "we eliminated a salaried position, and now need to hire the same person to do the same work as a Contractor."
Ottawa is full of "consultants" charging two and three times as much to the work that they used to do as employees.
Four NVSD schools have been identified for closure: Blueridge, Fromme, Plymouth and Seymour Heights.
Yup - seems I made the mistake of relying on news reports without checking the documents.
It seems ridiculous to me they're considering all three of Blueridge, Seymour Heights and Plymouth but there's no way all three can stay open with the current and projected number of kids.
Regretably it's a sign that our land policies have become anything but family-friendly - DNV in 2010 is certainly not the municipality I grew up in in the 60s and 70s.
For all the talk of "sustainability" and wanting to be a "complete community" at District Hall we're driving out our young families and this is part of the price we pay.
Face the facts, the District has extracted all increases through taxation and the residents have complied.
Some increases are to be expected, some not.
We all have the chance to voice our opinions of elected officals, and hoe they spend out money.
The time is coming soon, vote with your pocket book open or closed the choice is yours.
David Dixon
Dave Dixon for Mayor 2011!!
Welcome back Dave!
The scary part is NOT the ongoing litany of District tax increases well above the CPI year after year.
The hell of it is that that's the good news - look at the OTHER charges on your tax bill and you'll see the rate of increase is higher yet most particularly for Metro Vancouver and Translink.
District DOES seem to be trying (not nearly hard enough in my opinion) to limit tax increases since Walton and Co. know that the public DO speak out however feebly.
Metro Vancouver and Translink have no real representation by taxpayers and therefore don't feel the heat and respond accordingly.
Bevington, the $350K was money TO the DNV from FCM as a grant toward the OCP costs.... The consulting figure was $40K for the study presented about GHG targets. DNV does spend too much on consulting but throwing out bogus figures doesn't help the debate.
"It seems ridiculous to me they're considering all three of Blueridge, Seymour Heights and Plymouth"
Again, look closely Lyle, it says Closure or consolidation. Blueridge and Plymouth are likely to be closed with a new school built on the back field of Seymour Heights.
Perhaps they could cut the silliness of the ongoing OCP for Lynn Valley, how much has been spent in the last 14 years discussing this? Meetings, public consultations, charettes, more study, consultants, UBC design teams... If you are unable to make a decision then let it go until it's time comes
Money certainly is not spent on safety, notice how many streets have no sidewalks and minimal lighting? We say we want a healthy, walking community but everybody drives, and those that do walk are unsafe.
We are all responsible for fiscal matters, now it's the Districts turn.
dare I say it, time for a chat about joining the District and the City? Talk about overlap of service and a huge waste of money.
To the last anon, which OCP process are you referring to? The only ongoing OCP process involving Lynn Valley is the District OCP - the local area plan was 10 or so years ago.
The charette you're referring to refers to the Mall and immediately surrounding areas but at this point Bosa has no intention of re-developing so it's a low priority at present.
Once the economy gets back on track that may well change. In the meantime "let it go until it's time comes" fairly describes the situation.
In the area covered by the design charettes etc. (which is basically the area bounded by LV Road, Mountain Highway and 27th Street with the single blocks on the outside of the triangle included) the sidewalks are in good condition. Further out there is indeed work to be done.
Me bad. I relistened to the council clip and I got it wrong. Nonetheless the discussion that begins at around 21:14 (Item 5 council clip) and carries on to about 25:00 is very much worth watching. Coun Nixon is dead right when he points out that the 10's of 1000's of dollars wasted on consultants' reports is only the start of it. Staff costs must be added to get a true reckoning.
Dennis Bevington
The "staff costs" meaning number of current staff are unlikely to change much as council's will for service cuts is unlikely.
"Staff costs" as in council approved annual increases above annual CPI is something that should definitely be looked at for the next round of negotiations.
Basically all the Lower Mainland municipalities (except Vancouver) pooled their bargaining last time round and settled for essentially what Vancouver signed for after a long strike.
I don't remember the details but 3 1/4% comes to mind. (The exact payroll would of course depend on staffing levels - both CNV and DNV always have a small number of vacancies so it's not exact)
Vancouver has announced 44 layoffs today so they're clearly having a tough time making payroll given their budget.
Municipalities are NOT allowed by law to run deficits so it's important for them to get it right!
Not quite.
Vancouver and NV Dist. both had staff go on strike. NV City sat it out and waited for Van and NVD's outcome.
Richmond settled apart and separate from the other munis.
Their settlement which is approx. 20% compounded increase over 5 years destroyed the "hold the line" approach of Van and DNV.
Various munis including NV City caved and gave in to Richmond's rich agreement and finally Van and NVD had to do so as they knew that an arbitrator would award the settlement already out there.
Moral of the story. United we stand divided we fall.
And that is why CUPE funds and plays such an important roll in munciupal elections...
Consolidate the 3 municipal fire departments. This would eliminate the fat at the top as well as the costs. Even if you transferred these costs to hiring more firefighters (yes the ones that actually do the work) you will at a minimum provide a better service to the taxpayers of the North Shore.
Why stop there?
Engineering depts. Finance depts. Planning depts. HR depts.
councils. City managers. Clerks. 2 police depts. City Halls. Works yards.
All following the same logic.
Baby steps
Baby sized savings. Go big or stay home.
Its called amalgamation and it will happen, it has to happen and through voting for progressive mayors and council that are not frightened of losing their job for the betterment of the community, it will happen.
As long as the "vote early and vote often" don't sway the next municipal election we have a chance.
Dave Dixon
So, who are the 'progressive' councilors?
In the City I would say Pam Bookham, Rod Clark and maybe Guy Heywood generally think big picture.
Fearnley is just simply self serving
I guess Dave won't be running for Mayor. Why would anyone run for a position that htey believe will be defunct in the near future?
The District is always for amalgamation, the point that counts is the City since they are against it.
Create a scenario where the City will accept it.
Right now City taxpayers have a pretty sweet deal having access to all sorts of District facilities at minimal cost.
There's no question there are all kinds of potential joint savings to be made in fire and other services.
However in the present political environment I can't see that happening without provincial support and the Liberals are on record as NOT being in favor of amalgamations unless petitioned by the involved municipalities.
So for now the status quo between the two North Vancouvers is pretty much set in concrete.
Maybe my April 1st article of two years ago (which dealt with the amalgamation of West Vancouver and DNV) is the more probable scenario right now!
That's a District myth, the City pays more than its share such as the joint Cultural committee where the City pays an equal share despite the District having about double the population of the City.
"That's a District myth, the City pays more than its share such as the joint Cultural committee where the City pays an equal share despite the District having about double the population of the City."
The Office of Cultural Affairs? Yes its fifty fifty, but so is their programming. OCA has two seperate pots of money to spend. One for the District and one for the City. As a result, the administration should be split fifty fifty as well. No subsidy here... move along Bob.
A better example would be the RCMP where costs are not 50-50 but they're not 2-1 either.
Of course if the costs were allocated based on crime in DNV vs. CNV one could say the City is getting one helluva bargoon!
Fearnley is for the people.
You're lucky he is there to watch your dollars and the decisions.
Interesting that the city also sees either tax increases or service cuts. See Wed. NSNews.
The article states that the "lion's share" of the 2010 budget increases are attributed to increases in staff salary and benefits.
What I find interesting is the comments from the city manager. Didn’t I see somewhere on this blog site that the city just bought the city manager a $5000.00 laptop. Both the City manager and Fearnley are the biggest hypocrites
Yes there was a reference to a $5000 laptop but I think that was supposition and highly unlikely.
The same guy had maids, swimming pools etc. A bit of a flight of fancy.
Fearnley, next council meeting can you ask the city manager if he received a new laptop and if so what was the cost? You are for the people.. right?
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