Face to face

It was a good week. Real questions needing real answers. Honest suggestions. Genuine compromises. Real debate.

Budget deliberations tend to make easy soapboxes and easy politics. It’s much harder to do the studious work of reading, absorbing and reflecting upon the eye-watering number of numbers that make up the County budget. That council did so for five days straight, without bitterness or posturing, and with minimal irritation, is a credit to them all.

It helps that council is ably guided through the week by the sturdy, calm and eminently capable County treasurer, James Hepburn. To understand how he, Susan Turnbull and their team have transformed the way the County manages its budget process, one needs to go back only six years.

In the near past, County finances were barely comprehensible—budgets were more like buckets of wishful thinking. Funding wasn’t rooted to actual performance, so council had merely built upon last year’s fantasy. The County’s finances were audited each year—but they bore little relation to the budgets council actually worked with.

Council was like a steering wheel on a train—they could spin all day long but it wouldn’t change their direction. So councillors tended to zero in on a handful of their favourite topics, ride them energetically for a few hours, then concede they weren’t really getting anywhere. They would then meekly offer the mess back municipal staff, with instructions to come back with a lower tax increase. Something they could sell to their electorate.

When Turnbull arrived in 2009, then Hepburn shortly afterward, all that changed. Operating budgets were disentangled from capital works. Finances were organized along business lines. Reserves began to be restocked. Within a couple years, we were presented a tally of what the County owned. They had figured out how fast each bit was decaying and we began to understand how much it would cost to sustain the land, roads, buildings and vehicles the municipality had collected over time.

For me, and I expect for many others, the most important transformation has been advances in the reporting and accessibility of the County’s finances. I encourage readers to visit the County’s website and select Budget from the home page. There you will find 23 documents explaining the 2015 budget and how your money will be spent next year.

Don’t be put off by the amount of documents— among them are good summaries and explainers. But the key bit about the 23 documents is that each and every ratepayer or resident has the power to drill down and find out how much we spent, for example, on enforcing bylaws last year, and what we intend to spend this year. Or source water protection. Or bridges. It’s not just 2015. There is a wealth of information for 2014 and 2013. It begins to thin out in 2012 and 2011, yet financial statements are presented every year back to 1998.

Also found here is the County’s Asset Management Plan—a depressing, yet clear-eyed bit of reality that will surely inform the dialogue around roads, bridges and waterworks for a decade. Armed with this information, real questions can be asked. Real debate can happen. And is happening.

There is, however, one key bit that has been lost in the transformation. Council once heard from its front line managers on a regular basis. Human resources, waterworks, roads and parks managers used to put on a tie and come to council to talk about their business and to answer questions. They were typically polite and civil exchanges, but they offered the opportunity for council to ventilate concerns simmering in the community. It was also an opportunity for council to look its managers in the eye—to make a human assessment. That doesn’t happen anymore.

It is, at the end of the day, a human exercise, this business of governing. Numbers go a long way to inform and enable council members to make good and defensible decisions. But they only go part way. Our representatives need to hear firsthand how the County’s managers are implementing its policies and directions. They needed to understand the stress points and the hurdles.

One example: The fire department needs a new aerial fire truck, one with a long enough ladder to combat a fire in the County’s taller buildings. This truck could cost $1 million or more. It’s a lot of money.

The County has an arrangement with Belleville that if we need a tall ladder truck we can use their vehicle. It seems a reasonable provision for the rare occasion such a vehicle is required. But what do I know? I don’t have the data, but neither have I heard a persuasive case for a new aerial truck. We haven’t seen the cost/benefit analysis. Or the impact on insurance premiums. It isn’t good enough to simply point to a committee recommendation and insist it is necessary.

A million dollars is real money. The Fire Chief needs to make this case—to council and to the community.

I use this example only to illustrate that council, as a governing body, needs to see the effect of its choices and, at times, reassess priorities. This is best done by a regular, unfiltered dialogue between managers and council.

In pulling back the curtain on one aspect of the County’s business, it appears we have obscured another.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca