City Finance Committee wants to hear from you. Really. It does
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by: Donna Hopper
During Monday evening's public budget input session hosted at the John Rhodes Community Centre by the City's Finance Committee, members were open to any and all suggestions on how City Council can adjust the upcoming municipal budget.
Unfortunately, only seven citizens came out to take part in the second of three public sessions.
"The concensus is that educating the public is very important. Telling them what we're doing, the cost of doing business and try to impart that to them," explained Ward 4 City Councillor Steve Butland. "So when you walk in to something like this expecting 25 or 30 people to be there, and there's only five or six, it's quite disappointing."
Butland told SooToday.com that although the turn out was low, it was surprisingly positive, stating that they were extremely happy living in Sault Ste. Marie and with the services provided.
Issues and concerns were raised, however, regarding assessments, contracting out, basic city services, road conditions and repair, and building vacancies, some of which are not the City's jurisdiction.
Both Butland and Finance Committee Chair Marchy Bruni said that visitors to this session, as well as the one one previous, overwhelmingly expressed that they did not want any city tax increase.
"Whenever I'm told that people want lower taxes, I always ask: 'What services are you willing to lose?'" said Butland. "When you're given a service and then it's taken away, it's always more difficult."
"Obviously, everyone wants a zero tax increase, and we at City Council are going to work very, very hard at that," Bruni told us. "Is it a possibility? That we don't know."
The next public budget input session will be held at the Public Works and Transportation Department - City Works Centre, 128 Sackville Road (north of Green Circle Environmental), on Wednesday, January 25 from 7 to 9 p.m.
The public is encouraged to attend.
All comments and suggestions will be taken into consideration when the municipal budget is finalized this coming March.
Residents may also submit budgetary input by emailing budgetinput2012@cityssm.on.ca
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AceOfBass 1/18/2012 8:25:07 AM Report"Whenever I'm told that people want lower taxes, I always ask: 'What services are you willing to lose?'" said Butland. "When you're given a service and then it's taken away, it's always more difficult."
This is getting old using the threat of losing a services to those who pay the bills.
What these councillors should be doing is looking at eliminating or reducing funding to outside agencies.That is EDC,Innovation Centre and the SYA.The reduction of their funding would not effect their funding from Federal and Provincial sources.
We must remind these councillors that it is their role to maintain the financial integrity of the city.
Council's role is to ensure that the administrative polices,practises and procedures and controllership policies, practices and procedures are in place to implement the decisions of council.
Get rid of this Finance Committee and give direction to City Hall on what City Council wants.The City employs highly qualified people to set budgets.Not one of these councillors members are even qualified for these types of decisions,it is all a smoke and mirror process and the taxpayers are not buying this and that shows in the poor turnout.
Techno-Geek 1/18/2012 9:59:46 AM ReportThere's a lot of money to be saved by doing things that are cost effective and just plain logical. An example of this would be to not send snow removal crews out when there is absolutely no snow on the ground! Two weeks ago the grader came down my street 6 times in 2 days and there was no snow on the ground to before it even came down the street the first time! Sparks were coming off the blade the entire length of the street ruining the asphalt, creating undue road damage and ultimately road repairs to follow. Now with snow on the ground for a week - I've only seen the grader once for an entire week. Seems very backwards and costly to operate fast and loose the way they are. We the tax payers pay for this, and then get threatened with losing services when we want to see reductions and savings. I'll pay for snow removal, I'll pay for business development, I'll even pay for road maintenance.... and those are the things I expect you to deliver. I do not want to pay to have some job justified that is currently not serving any viable purposes. Its not right to threaten a reduction or loss of services due to budget cuts; when a budget cut could simply mean restructuring the service to be efficient and reflecting TRUE cost of operation.
Pink Peony 1/18/2012 11:56:11 AM ReportAce, I hope you and your wife are doing well and that she is continuing to recover from her strokes.
