COLLINS: Santa won’t solve the city’s budget issues

Many cities use incremental budgeting, where you start with what you ended with last year and make some additions. It, too, is a poor choice. The answer lies somewhere in between.

A few years back, the City of Calgary obtained a grant to study budgeting options. The study was done by the Government Financial Officers Association. This paper provides much more detail much more accurately than I can describe, so if you want more, feel free.

Two types of budgeting were prevalent, priority budgeting and target-based budgeting. They have pluses and minuses, but to make them effective, you need to know several things. This is simply my take on what needs to happen and is based on what my takeaway was from a couple of reads of this paper, and I fully admit some of this is way over my head.

First, you need to have solid performance data to make a proper decision on anything. Second- what are the priorities, of the public, the council and the departments? And then, once we have prioritized, how do we find the money to make it happen? If we want new facilities, what do we want? More ice surfaces? Will the city pay the total cost? Or will it be partly or fully paid by user fees? Do we need more thorough snow-clearing? How much will it cost for machinery and staff to get rid of those darn windrows?

We can go on forever, but to wrap this up, we need to analyze department performance to see how it measures up. Mayor Hamer-Jackson campaigned on accountability and that has to happen.

Then we have to establish priorities. And then consult the public to see how much they want to pay, and then make a final decision. If the public is confident the city isn’t wasting their tax dollars, they might be willing to pay more for what they want.

Council and city employees have a lot to ponder, and I don’t think they will have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads when they go to sleep Christmas Eve.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

by Doug Collins

COLLINS: Santa won’t solve the city’s budget issues

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