Weekly newsletter: December 12, 2022

Hello,

Well, I’m starting to feel like a real Councillor now!

At last week’s marathon seven-hour City Council meeting, my fellow Council members and I were given the chance to make an opening remark. You can watch mine here.

This week, Council will be voting on a direction for the 2023 budget. Due to the election, the budget cycle for next year has been compressed and shifted back by a few months.

In non-election years, Council votes on a budget direction in early-summer before tabling and voting on the budget in December, followed by public and committee consultations.

This time, the budget directions report is being voted on this week, with consultations taking place in January and February before the budget is officially tabled and voted on in March.

City staff then sets a budget within the approved budget-directions, and at that point, it gets discussed (again), adjusted, and adopted. This approach has been normal practice for several terms of Council and frees Councillors to work on other items by delegating budgeting work.

However, I don’t think it’s the most accountable way to determine a city’s budget.

City staff are basically in control of the budget with little input from Councillors, other than the initial directions, and eventual public and committee consultation stage.

In fact, that's how we end up with situations where Council defers to city staff who operate within Council directions. This essentially, and seemingly endlessly, passes responsibility of any shortcoming back and forth.

Regardless of one’s opinion on the amount of politicking that happens in the current supposedly objective budgeting process, I believe that the Councillors you elect should gain more control of the budgeting process.

Not only would this provide more accountability, it would give us a deeper and more intimate understanding of the City’s programs to help identify savings and places that may need reinforcement.

Of course, we would continue to involve city staff in the decision-making process, but responsibility  shouldn’t be thrown back at staff. Accountability should start and end with your City Council.

Let’s rethink the 2024 budget process.

- Wilson