City property owners will have to dig up just over three per cent more cash to pay their property taxes this year.
The increase was cut from just over four per cent by juggling of funds and a 50 per cent rate boost for rural water users.
Funds from unused allowances for wage contracts will pay for a $50,000 employee job revaluation. It’s about time. The existing job categories from the 1950s still talk about typewriters.
In the early part of this century, administration tried to get around that by the problematic measure of having employees write their own job descriptions.
Rural water users are incensed to see the 50 per cent water rate increase with the money going to the city, not the water utility. Some are thinking of bypassing Moose Jaw’s declining shopping base for their purchases.
Council approval of $146,000 for the municipal airport authority, up from $30,000, recognizes commercial potential of the airport, something Councillors Brian Swanson and Dawn Luhning don’t understand.
They believe, wrongly, that the airport is used by a privileged few and always will be. Municipal airports are becoming an economic driver.
The decision to not report every two months on the amounts spent by council and the mayor out of their individual $4,700 annual travel and professional development allowance funds is unfortunate.
Telling taxpayers how much of their hard-earned money is spent becomes so critical to being accountable.
Swanson wanted this report. Since he spends little of his allowance, others may have feared he would use their spending to play politics. Or do they have something to hide?
The most unfortunate part of this budget was the secrecy.
The night the budget was tabled and briefly described was the last public discussion until the minutes of budget meetings were approved.
Taxpayers/voters should have the option of knowing how and why decisions are made, such as who said what and what advice was offered by administration.
The online technology is available. Why not use it?
Not even the reports tabled for council budget meetings are available online. One of the most crucial was a report on a potential eight per cent budget cut. What options were made available? Who took what positions on which options? What reductions were possible?
It seems council believes taxpayers are too dumb to understand or don’t care about the options on how their money is spent.
Not having televised budget meetings for at least some of the talks is like having Jody Wilson-Raybould testify to the Parliamentary justice committee behind closed doors.
On this matter, council policy apparently seems based on “trust us.” That is not good enough in a time when voters have so little trust in politicians.
By these policies of secrecy council plays into Swanson’s politicking/grandstanding. The issues he raises in public out of these non-broadcast meetings make him appear the taxpayers’ saviour to many voters.
Meanwhile, voters wonder what the heck other councillors say and do at these meetings.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
The views expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Moose Jaw Today, the Moose Jaw Express, its management, or its subsidiaries.
