- by John Tamming

I regret that I cannot vote for this budget in its present form. I believe we should tell staff to come back with a budget with a zero percent tax increase. Show us what it would look like. The budget proposes a tax hike of around 3%. I am asking that this 3% be cut out.
In the private sector, if any business was forced to find 3% savings in expenses, that business could do so on a dime. Only in the public sector are such adjustments seen as next to impossible.
We need to have a difficult conversation with ourselves.

There is Time
Three quick points.
First, there is nothing wrong with dissent. Dissent is essential to how we operate. And that includes an annual budget.
Second, there is time to change this budget. There is absolutely nothing wrong with voting this budget down, with saying to staff, respectfully, “No. Try again.” The tax levies have to be set in June. We have lots of time.
Third, I want to admit that I could have been more assertive in my views at previous budget meetings.

Our Ratepayers Need More Help
The scales fell from my eyes several weeks ago. With other councillors, I received some provincial data which frankly surprised me. I knew things were not great but I learned that Owen Sound is the fifth poorest large town/small city in the entire province. We are among the very poorest in Ontario based on combined household income. We are also the least wealthy urban area within Grey-Bruce. But we pay the highest property taxes in this region. What is more, we pay a higher percentage of our income towards property taxes than anyone else in the region, indeed in almost the entire province.
This cannot continue.
Staff responds to pressure from council. That’s just the way it works. And I don’t think we have tried hard enough to press staff to find savings. It’s that simple.
Since I was first elected three years ago, I have noticed a pattern. It goes like this: Staff comes up in December with a proposed tentative budget hike of, say, 4% or even 5%. We say “too high”. They come back with something in the 2 ½% to 3% range. And we nod yes and call it a day. If this budget is approved, council during this term would have approved a total of 10% in tax hikes. And that is not even talking water rates.
We can do better.

We are not a Mid-Sized City
We act like a medium sized city when in fact we have the property tax base of a large town. We have come to act like we are Guelph when in fact we have only 5,000 or so more souls than does Saugeen Shores.
I notice that Brampton just approved a zero percent tax increase for the fourth year in a row. It can be done. I know for a fact that in Brampton council has pre budget meetings with staff and tells them the lay of the land – in their case, “We want zero percent. Please make it happen.” Staff gets their marching orders and they manage to get it down. Brampton is not Owen Sound. I get that. But we can and must aspire to lower taxes.
Now some will say that Meaford tried this some years ago. Meaford froze taxes and had to catch up a couple of years later with massive hikes.
That need not happen here. I am not saying that we should put off infrastructure builds to save money. I am not saying that we should engage in creative accounting to keep the levy down.

Where the Savings Lie
I am saying that when it comes to operating expenses, we need more discipline.
Emergency Services: We are making progress on fire. It is very, very slow progress but we are pressing as hard as the collective bargaining process allows. Police will have to wait.
Transit: We have requests for proposals out for a new transit contract. But we have been put on notice: to keep the system we now have will cost us at least another half million dollars a year. I believe that when the tenders come in, it will be more, more much. So, we will entertain slashing service to make the math work: Run the buses on the hour, not the half hour. But then ridership will plunge even more. So, in other words, the math won’t work.

I have real empathy for those who need transit but we will have to move to fixed, capped subsidies for rideshares instead of financing largely empty buses circling the town. Again, we act like we are a city, but again, we only have the tax base for a large town. Is Saugeen Shores or is Hanover heartless for not having transit? To ask the question is to answer it.
Redundant Staffing: Again, we have staffed ourselves as though we are a medium sized city rather than a large town.
There are redundant jobs within these walls. Some were redundant when they were first approved. Others have become redundant over time, through automation, online services and the like.

Also, we have managers of managers of managers. It is time to aggressively try to flatline our organization.
Remember this: If a very basic white collar position within these walls pays just $60,000, that has to be grossed up by 33% for benefits and staff overhead, such as matching CPP and EI contributions. That means a plain vanilla civil service job hits $100,000 very quickly.
It is time to tell all department heads, through our city manager, to identify several such positions. Collectively, I suspect there are savings of at least three quarters of a million if not a million. Now a good part of that would be eroded during year one through severance packages but the table would be set for even larger savings the next year.

Remember – every $300,000 in savings means a full percentage point reduction in taxes.
But wait, we say. Let’s wait for a service review. Let’s wait for a free consultant from Toronto to show us how we can be more efficient. For a time, I was in favour of that. But no longer. We have excellent senior managers in this town. I have gotten to know and respect all of them. They are top notch. They know their departments. They don’t need someone else to tell them where the savings lie. They know where the money is.
Now, I concede that it is awkward to approach these issues, it is painful to render some jobs redundant. I get all that. But it is our job and that of management.

Concluding Comments
We need action on taxes now. The pensioner on a fixed income needs action now. The spread between our taxes and those of our immediate neighbours must shrink now.
I urge council to return this budget back to staff and to ask them to find substantial savings that would allow a tax increase of zero.