It's budget time at city hall and administration is advising the city that if it goes ahead with the pool and a new water line from Yellowknife River to the water treatment plant, the city will be carrying a lot of debt.
No kidding! In this uncertain world, with interest rates rising, less debt is often better than more debt but that will be for council to decide.
The process by which city council reviews the budget is a long and time-consuming one. To a large extent, it determines what city taxes will be for residents. The more the city spends, the more taxes people must pay. This seems to be the rule of thumb.
If you own your home and property, you know all about city taxes because you will get a bill you must pay, or you will lose your house. Believe that bill can be considerable. A lot of other people pay taxes indirectly through their rent or condo fees. This leads some people to not care what the city spends because they don’t see what they are paying. This is a problem in our system that really needs to be addressed.
Personally, I think everyone should see what it costs them, and it should be part of their rent bill. It would make for much saner decisions. A renter should get a statement that says your rent is one amount and the city taxes tacked onto your rent is another amount, which is why your overall rent is so high. If this happened, suddenly people would start to take city politics and costs a whole lot more seriously.
While I consider the budget deliberations an important part of the process, there are other things, council should consider. One would be a way of tracking how the city is doing regarding its budgets and time-lines. There are lots of horror stories in the country and in the city, where costs have gone way over budget and delays have been endemic. So, the city should keep track of these things. If a project is going over budget, it should be halted, reevaluated and even revolted on. Delays should also be examined.
City hall, like any level of government, organization or business needs a good budget but it also has to look at ways of reducing costs, increasing revenue or finding other sources of revenue.
Is it necessary for the city to pay for free lunches for noon hour committee meetings? What about all the travelling done by city politicians and staff? Is that all necessary? What about cracking down on littering and illegal dumping? That costs the city money. Maybe they should have a few true amnesty days at the dump, so people wont illegally dump stuff in and around town.
Also, a lot of things have been done around town by the city which has increased the cost of maintenance. Past administrations didn’t seem to care about this but maybe it is time they started. Look at the idiotic bicycle lanes on 52 Avenue. How much longer does it take to plow that street in the winter and how much more does that cost? The city really should talk to the snowplow operators and get their perspective on things first, before they build. I am sure they would come up with some cost saving ideas.
There are numerous examples around town of similar investments where the maintenance costs go up because the things were poorly designed. I watched four students spend over an hour cutting grass with string trimmers because the trees and rocks had been arranged in such a way that the lawn mowers couldn’t get around them. It seems like a little thing, but all those little things add up. Remember a penny saved is a penny earned, which is good for the long-suffering taxpayers.
Also, when a big-ticket item like the new pool comes up, why isn’t the city asking the people who want it the most to participate. If people really want a pool, are they willing to vote with their wallets and contribute to it. I believe that fundraising should be a part of such projects. The entire burden of the cost should not be put solely on the taxpayers.
That’s how things use to be done in the past and how the Gerry Murphy arena was built.