Now

Now is the time to start shaping next year’s budget. Now is when the goals and ambitions of municipal spending ought to be defined. Targets set. Not in four crushing days before Christmas with a ticking clock imposing an arbitrary deadline on this important business.

It may be tempting for council to slip quietly into the sleepy months of summer, but there is work to do. Now. Or they will face the same ambush they endured last January when they handed over the largest dollar increase in the municipal budget in the County’s history.

Let us begin. Now.

Let us start with why. The County’s population is shrinking. Yet our dwindling cohort pays four times more in property tax than it did when this municipality was formed in 1998. Over the past two decades, property taxes have risen three times faster than the rate of inflation over the same period. That means the County is reaching deeper and deeper into your pocket each and every year. The same pattern is true for user fees, including your water bill and garbage services.

The County business is big and complex. It will spend $57.5 million to operate the business and nearly $28 to rebuild and renovate its decaying assets. It’s a lot of money. It requires more consideration than four days in December.

There is another pressing case for examining the County’s finances. The province, having mandated service levels and compliance requirements in activities it shares with municipalities, is aggressively walking away from its funding responsibilities. Public health, Conservation Authorities and land ambulance are the services that have made headlines in newspapers, and caused headaches across Ontario. There are many more cuts seeping through, adding to the burden on municipal coffers.

So it is time to ask fundamental questions about what the County is, and what it can and cannot continue to be. The County owns about 88 buildings—it is difficult to get an accurate count. We have scant reserves to fix them as they fall apart. Yet council rejected a solid offer to take the old Picton fire hall out of municipal hands, but then approved a $2 million expansion to the Picton Library—of which the majority of funds will come from municipal coffers.

It matters not at all whether one is passionately for or against such decisions, but rather that council is making them without the context of its broader financial challenges.

For here is the thing: the cost of living in Prince Edward County is changing this community. When we decide to walk away from selling a building that was on the auction block, we make it harder for those on the margin to live here. We compel others to leave. No, the rising cost of living here isn’t due exclusively to local government, nor is even the chief driver. But it is something over which council has direct control. It can lead. It can set an example. It can show that it cares that the County remains affordable to everyone who wishes to live here.

It isn’t about whether we can conjure a good argument or fill the seat in the council chamber. It is about sitting down as a council, or a subset, to do the hard work of establishing priorities and then deciding what we can do without. Make no mistake, this is difficult and thankless work. Narrow interests will be arrayed against each and every recommendation.

But if council isn’t able to do this in the first year of its term, it is unlikely it will every be done.

So now is the moment to make your mark. Use the next few months to examine the business. To set goals and work toward them.

The alternatives aren’t satisfactory. Waiting until December to define fiscal benchmarks isn’t fair or reasonable to the folks who have to prepare their budgets. Nor is setting arbitrary caps on budget increases (or decreases). For it is too tempting for bureaucrats and managers to spike programs and services with broad public appeal and thus expose council members to a tsunami of public pushback.

Better to work together. Early. Find ways to spread the pain equally. Begin a regular dialog that inculcates a shared desire, and responsibility, to strive for good value for taxpayers’ dollars.

One easy step to get started is to establish a waterworks commission. It is a complex business that is already mostly discrete from the rest of County business. It functions with its own operating and capital budgets. It is funded solely by the users of the service. It ought to be governed by the folks who have a direct stake in its safety, reliability and finances.

Starting now signals the seriousness of the task ahead. It signals a clear-eyed view that the work is hard, but can no longer be ignored.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca