By Pepper Parr

March 12, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON.

During the time of Jesus in first century Israel, there were tax collectors who could walk up to a man and tax him for what he was carrying.  These tax collectors were hated and despised because they were usually fellow Jews who worked for Rome. There were many taxes needed from the provinces to administrate the Roman Empire. These taxes paid for a good system of roads, law and order, security, religious freedom, a certain amount of self-government and other benefits.  The men who did this work were called publicans.

It isn’t all that much different today. The province of Ontario requires the municipalities to maintain roads and water treatment plants; we have to have a police force, we have to have a Medical Officer of Health who administers rules the province puts in place.

The city of Burlington levies taxes.  City council recently passed a budget that set a budget of $133,816,211 for current operations and $67 million for capital expenditures and determined that home owners will pay a tax of $12.78 for every $100,000 of property valuation.  That property assessment is set by MPAC – the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation..

Every property owners know what the taxes are on their homes – what most people don’t know is that different types of property pay a different amount of tax

Residential property is taxed at what they refer to as 1; which means they pay that $12.78 for every $100,000 of property assessment.

There are eight different classes of property:

Residential (1.0)

New multi-residential (2.0)

Multi-residential (2.26)

Commercial (1.45)

Industrial (2.35),

Farmlands (0.20)

Managed forests (0.25)

Pipelines, (1.06)

This Enbridge pipe line runs from border to border of the city – they pay .06 more on their assessment than you do for your house.  What is the pipeline asses at?  We don’t know that.

Those numbers in brackets represent the tax ratio rate, with residential always set at 1.  So for a property assessed at $200,000 that is residential that rate would be 2 x $12.78  a property that is classed Commercial the rate would be 2.35 x $12.78  assuming the same $200,000 assessment

This isn’t exactly the middle of a farm field is it. Land that could be taxed as commercial gets a farmland tax rate even if it is in the middle of town – all you have to do is cut the hay and bale it.

Take a look at that farmland rate and recall driving by one of those vacant lots on the South service Road where you may have seen round bales of hay that never seems to get taken away.  That property managed to get itself classes as farmland and all they have to pay is 0.20 of that $12.78  tax rate.  Now you know why developers can hang onto land and are patient while its value increases.  They get it classified as farm land, have someone cut what is really low, low quality hay and pay 1/5^th of the rate you are paying for your property.

Those tax rates are set by the Regional government.  Burlington has seven seats on the 20 member council – but don’t expect our team to suggest a different tax structure for farmland held by developers or for that matter, land in those large estates north of 407.  Huge homes where people live in the lap of luxury – which is fine.  Heck they earned their money (didn’t they?) and if they can afford that kind of space good on them – but have them pay the same taxes as those poor shmucks in the suburbs south of Dundas.

Things used to better in Burlington; there was a time when the city levied a tax on telephone poles. “we can’t do that anymore” advised the Director of Finance.  There was a bit of a wistful look in her eye when she made that statement.

By Pepper Parr

March 5, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON.

What started out as an ask of $134,513,000 as a total tax levy, which called for a tax increase of 4.66%, got pared down to $133,889,000 which would have meant a tax increase of 4.13% finally came in at $133,816,211 and a tax increase of 3.5% which works out to $12.78 for each $100,000 of residential urban assessment – it took close to two months to whittle that number back. 

The number represents an increase of 3.5% which over the term of this council totals 10.13% over the four-year term – slightly higher than the 10% the Mayor went on record with.  Expect to hear that point made regularly by this council during the election we will have in October.

Budgets however are a lot more than just numbers; the deliberations that get a council to their total are an honest look at the values these seven people bring to the job they do.  At times the view was exceptional but all too often it was disappointing, limited and showed a timidness and an inability to come up with the bold yet creative ideas that would both grow the city financially and at the same time maintain the quality of life people who live here expect.

The hope for Burlington was seen at a Committee of the Whole Meeting that took place while Council was going through the budget deliberations.

In its media release the city included all the pat on the back stuff – and staff did do a fine job of making all the parts come together – but this was not a great budget. It was adequate.
There were more than a dozen citizen delegations – it is hard to identify those that were listened to with the exception that the city manager did promise he would come back to the arts and culture community no later than June and let them know if he has been able to find a full time equivalent to use as the spot for a cultural manager. That spark of creativity didn’t come from anyone on this council.

Highlights that the city points to include:
One-time funding of $86,000 for Community Development Halton for social programming, including North BurLINKton and the Chill Zone
$115,000 one-time and $25,000 ongoing funding for an extra round of loose leaf collection in areas north of the QEW
$643,000 toward infrastructure renewal.

Back in 2010 the city was told they had to come up with $60 million as its share of the redevelopment price for the Joseph Brant Hospital. That amount has been paid out during the past year with the levy rising each year to what will be a $1.2 million increase this year which brings what we are setting aside this year to $4.8 million. That levy by the way is not likely to ever disappear – once they have their hand in your pocket they will find a way to keep it there.

This year there was very little, if any, mention of “shave and pave” that process we use to keep the cost of maintaining our roads manageable.
The budget this paid much more attention to culture than it did to the state of the roads; an exceptionally heavy winter resulted in a lot of discussion about what we want to do about snow removal.

The size of the staff compliment was always on the table. No new hires but a lot of re-evaluating positions and redeveloping the job done. We learned during the budget deliberations there was going to be a total workforce review to determine what the city has and what it needs in terms of a workforce and how to use what it has to get what we need done.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.

February 4, 2014

Jeff Fielding has a problem.  It’s a big problem.  We aren’t sure exactly when he realized he had a problem nor do we know when he fully realized the extent of the problem.  But there is no doubt today that he has got a firm grip on the problem and he can tell you exactly what it is with one simple graph.

The chart covers a long period of time and it is difficult to read the detail but the trend isn’t hard to miss.  Those red lines represent the amount of money the city does not have but needs to spend if roads and other capital assets are to be maintained.  Are there efficiencies anywhere?

Fielding will tell you that we aren’t in a desperate situation – yet, but he adds that if we don’t do something now – we will be in a close to desperate situation.  The problem is with the asset’s the city owns.

In January of last year Fielding briefed Council corporate Asset Management Project.  At that time Italo DiPietro and Paul Rohoman were seconded from Engineering to Corporate Strategic Initiatives to give the task the dedicated and focused attention it needed.

The city’s tangible capital assets, based on their replacement value is approximately $2.5 billion.  Of this, approximately $2 billion is made up of linear assets including roads, storm sewers, bridges/culverts and sidewalks. A further $295 million is made up of city owned facilities and buildings. Collectively these two categories comprise approximately 92% of the city’s total capital assets as measured by replacement value.

The objective of this project has been to report on the status of the city’s infrastructure, including adequacy of funding levels in the context of full life cycle needs. Following this, the project team would work with Finance staff on the analysis of funding scenarios and implications for the long-term condition of the city’s tangible capital assets.

In the asset management world seven things matter:

1.     What do we own and where is it? (Inventory)

2.     What is it worth? (Costs and replacement rates)

3.     What is its condition and expected service life? (Condition and capability analysis)

4.     What do we need to do to it? (optimum preventative maintenance and rehabilitation)

5.     When do you need to do it? (Capital and operating plans)

6.     How much will it cost?

7.     How do you ensure long-term affordability? (Short and long term financial plan and acceptable risk)

These are large numbers.  This is arcane language – only something an account would get excited about.  However, if one looks at the data in a format that is easy to understand it evokes an Are you kidding me?

Goodram looking north from LAkeshore: a classic Burlington Street that cost $2.9 million to rebuild just a portion of the street.

Last summer Goodram Street was rebuilt.  The street was close to 60 years old and its best before date had passed – some time ago.  So the city rebuilt the road, rebuilt the sidewalk and the sewers at a total cost of $2.9 million

There were 54 homes on the stretch of street that had the construction work done.  Based on the tax revenue the city derives from those 54 homes it will be at least 24 years before the $2.9 million has been recovered.  In the meantime of course the city has to provide the good people on Goodram the normal services anyone else gets.

That kind of mathematics is just not sustainable – which is why Jeff Fielding and his staff are looking for more efficient ways to run the city.  Somehow we must get a grip on what we are spending on the assets we own.

Director of Finance Joan Ford does a great job of providing the data and her department does a good job of collecting the taxes as well. It’s the spending side that is causing the long term financial stress. Ms Ford doesn’t do the spending.

It is important to note, said a city Corporate Strategic Initiatives (CSI) report that asset accounting is different than asset management. The former is backward looking and is focused on developing an annual charge based on expected service life (amortization period) and depreciated cost based on the acquisition cost (net book value). It is not based on actual replacement cost or actual condition of the assets, and in many cases the actual inventory of assets has been pooled and does not give specific details on an asset itself. Asset management on the other hand is forward-looking and is focused on planning for the maintenance and renewal needs of an asset in the future. It is a management and capital planning methodology.  Critical difference that impacts on the way Fielding has to find the money to pay for the replacements.

To provide a full long-term assessment of funding needs, a 60 year time horizon was used for both the facilities and buildings assets and roadways.  Meeting new building code and accessibility requirements will add to the actual cost of projects.

Based on this analysis, the existing backlog of now needs for facilities and buildings is estimated at $13.2 million.  With existing funding levels a moderate backlog is forecast to persist on average over the next 25-30 year period.

In the longer term, the forecast for facilities is shown to increase significantly, as long life building systems reach the end of the useful life. The extent of the cumulative backlog will be approximately $25 million at the end of the planning horizon approaching year 60.

Ouch!

The existing backlog of now need roads has been calculated at $105 million. The shave and pave program has extended the life of our roads but there is nothing that can extend them forever.  Existing funding levels indicate a major deficit in approximately 2025 which is when a large volume of roads that will be at the end of their useful life and will require full reconstruction.

One of the objectives in the City’s Long Term Financial Plan is Predictable Infrastructure Investment. The city’s infrastructure is aging, and funds must be committed to ensure it is properly maintained and renewed. It is imperative that a strategy be developed in a way that ensures our assets are protected and maintained at minimum cost to the taxpayers.

There are several possible financing strategies available to address the issue of the existing backlog and the growing infrastructure funding gap.  Capital from Current funding (Cash) is one of the preferred strategies. It requires detailed planning to ensure that funds can be collected over the life of the asset. . This option would require incremental increases to the city’s existing dedicated infrastructure levy. This would directly impact tax rate increases as well as restrict the ability to utilize property tax levies for other needs.

That last sentence needs to be read a second time. `… require incremental increases to the city’s existing dedicated infrastructure levy. This would directly impact tax rate increases as well as restrict the ability to utilize property tax levies for other needs.

Funds for new project would not be available.

In order to move towards a cash-based renewal program there may be a need to reduce the speed by which the city achieves the optimal life cycle funding level. Lifecycle spending levels may need to be slowed down to match funding capability, and new initiatives and programs restricted to match available funding. Despite these challenges, the cash funding option is preferred due to its sustainability.

A rapt audience listened to an overview of the 2014 budget. What they have yet to have explained to them is the desperate situation the city will be in ten years from now if something isn’t done in the next few years to figure out how we are going to pay for the maintenance of the roads we have.

The city`s reserve funds are improving but the city nevertheless got a “warning” rating when the last report was received.. Drawing upon reserves to fund infrastructure renewal will only be sustainable in the long run, if contributions are made on an annual basis from the tax base and other revenues.

Tax monies put into reserve funds is then not available for other projects.

As well, the city may want to establish a policy of maintaining a minimum balance on the capital reserve funds. This will allow the city to maintain financial flexibility and match funding required by other government grant programs without incurring additional debt.

The Parks & Recreation Department currently adds a surcharge on room rentals and programs at select locations. These funds are then held in a reserve fund for that facility’s capital renewal needs. The practice is not currently in place at all locations and the surcharge being collected is often insufficient to cover all renewal needs. The vast majority of other fees collected across the city are used solely to offset departmental operating costs and do not contribute to facility renewal. Should the city choose to rely more heavily on this source of funding, a review of current revenue policies would need to be conducted to establish where facility renewal costs could be recovered from rates and fees.

The city has recently been successful in the sale of naming rights at the new Haber Community Centre. Annual revenues from this sponsorship arrangement will be deposited in the facility’s reserve fund to be used towards future capital renewal. Additional private sector sponsorship arrangements such as these could be used to address facility renewal at other locations within the city. It should be noted that these options only address the city’s facility infrastructure needs and do not assist with the funding gap for other asset categories.

Lori Jivan, Acting coordinator of budget and policy patiently leads people through an explanation of the budget and the workbook the city created.

Debt financing is beneficial as it can be used to address immediate needs faster than waiting for cash reserves to be built up. However it comes with an additional interest expense. Debt follows the principle of “intergeneration equity”, as it spreads the costs over the taxpayers consuming the asset and the benefit of the capital project over a longer period.

The city has a current debt policy which restricts total debt charges to 12.5% of net revenues.

The city’s long term reliance on debt as a funding source for asset renewal should be phased out as asset renewal is a continual expense requiring a sustainable funding source. However, it may be necessary to incur debt financing in early years in order to include several critical life-cycle projects for which sufficient funds have not been fully set aside. It is also important to keep in mind that when considering the use of debt as a funding source, the city should ensure that it is being used in a fiscally responsible manner and should follow the recommendations of the City’s Long Term Financial Plan.

Other options are:

Divesting of underutilized assets – This option would include the review of assets owned by the city (land and buildings) with the objective of maximizing the value of these assets through sale, partnering on development or optimizing net lease costs received/paid by the city.

Development of other revenue sources. There is a potential to develop other revenue sources through the establishment of city owned development or service corporations.

Transferring of assets to senior levels of government, for example roads rationalization with the Region.

Burlington is not bringing in the new employment development.  Commercial properties pay more in the way of taxes and cost the city less to service.  Residential housing is a loss operation for the city: it costs more to provide the services home owners need than the city is able to collect in taxes.

Can the city manage its debt and the cost of the infrastructure by pushing some of it forward and having the next generation pay for some of what we need to fix in the next ten years?  Could the city use a conversation that would look seriously at the options in front of us?

There is one more graph that offers some hope.  We continually hear about the baby boomers that are going to retire and cost the city more to provide services for.

The chart above shows where the hope is.  While there are millions of baby boomers there are even more millions of Millennials – young people who will want to live and work in Burlington.  We need to ensure that there are jobs in the city for them and that Burlington is a city they will want to live in.  But that`s 20 years down the road.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON

January 15, 2014

There was a bit of a buzz in the Council Chamber Tuesday afternoon – the significant seven were gearing up for their first crack at the 2014 budget and given that they were going into an election year they both wanted to get it right and at the same time make sure they took care of the people in their wards.

Ward 3 Councillor John Taylor was the first one to approach the pork barrel – we will come back to that.

In a phrase – the city wants to spend $134,513,000 – up $2, 155,000 from 2013- and they are going to do that without adding to the staff compliment which now sits at 1311 with both full and part-time people.  Staff salary increases is to be limited to 1% in 2014.

The document being debated was the recommendations from the city’s Executive Budget Committee (EBC) which consists of the city manager, his two general managers, the Director of Finance Joan Ford,  Transportation Director Bruce Zvaniga, HR Manager Roy Male and Corporate Strategic Initiatives Executive Director Allan Magi.

At a meeting in December city manager Jeff Fielding put a number on the table that had his people looking for an increase that was 4.66% over 2013 or $6,106,ooo  – you could almost hear the gulping on the other side of the horseshoe.

City staff came up with a budget increase of 4.66% over 2013.  Council pushed back and it was cut to 4.13%  Service changes could add an additional 3.66%.

The city has a couple of whoppers it has to deal with.  The money it has to fork over to OMERS to cover the staff pension requirements got increased – taxpayers don’t get to say “no thanks” to this ask.  OMERS found it wasn’t fully funded to meet the draw hat would be made so they slipped in a special levy.

Insurance premiums have increased and there has been more than expected in the way of assessment appeals that were lost and vacancy rebates.

The city’s infrastructure work is not up to date and more money is needed to fix the roads before they become so bad they have to be rebuilt.  There is a half a percentage point ($643,000) tax levy dedicated to infrastructure that the city manager wants to raise to three-quarters of a percentage point.

Being added is $815,000 in spending which will get covered by additional revenue from the growth of assessment revenue.

Hayden Recreation Centre will get $375,000

Alton Library $295,000

Transit service for Hayden High School – this one won’t be a forever cost if the service is not well used.

Operating costs for water play features in three community parks: $49,000

Roads, Parks and Information technology growth: $52,000.

Growth in the city’s property assessment has come to an end.  The spending days have to come to an end as well.

The gravy days for Burlington are now at an end.  Assessment growth has plummeted.  In 2002 the weighted assessment growth was 3.69% – we are now at .58%   The big cheque days for the developers has come to an end.

The Executive Budget Committee recommended four areas for expansion:  Heritage is to get a full-time Planner – if the Heritage Conservation District gets approved in principle that planer will be very busy.

Heritage Burlington will get $167,000 of which $64,000 is a onetime amount.

Culture has been given a lot of attention; the Cultural Action Plan has been approved in principle – next step for that is an Implementation plan which will require a full-time Manager of Cultural Services (think $128,000) and lastly $36,000 for the community garden initiative Burlington Green got off the ground two years ago.  Agriculture has worked itself south of the rural urban divide.

The Burlington Economic Development Corporation is in for $275,000 for more studies – they want to revise their business model – what business?  That crowd has delivered one cock-up after another in the past two years.  They turfed the Executive Director and then added a significant chunk of change to the cost of the severance package with some ill-timed comments from the chair.  The movement of that mouth is reputed to have cost the city an additional $10k.

The city feels it needs to add crossing guards and an additional crossing guard supervisor to the staffing list. And the final increase to the tax levy for the city’s portion of the cost to rebuild the Joseph Brant Hospital is due to come on-line this year.

There is also a service called One Call that the city can’t get out of which is going to cost us $111,000 this year and probably an ongoing amount for the service that has to do with knowing where anyone is going to dig to ensure that they don’t hit hydro lines, gas lines or anything else that is underground.  when the service was mentioned at a Council Stranding Committee meeting Roads and Park Maintenance Director Cathy Robinson said there wasn’t much the city could do – it was being mandated by the province and we were stuck with it.

Looked at from a high level – the budget for 2014 looks something like this:

This is what the Executive Budget Committee proposed to Council early in December. City Manager Jeff Fielding called it a status quo budget. Council wasn’t quite on for that much.

Staffing has held firm:  1131 people of which 865 are full-time and 251 part-time – holding those numbers in an election year is no small feat.  Kudos on holding that line.

Staffing was kept at the 2013 compliment and salary increases will be limited to 1%.   That will keep the rate payers happy.

While not included in the Executive Budget Committee recommendations there are some suggestions Council can consider if they are looking for ways to cut the budget.

Limit overtime

Remove one leaf pickup south of the QEW ($65,000) and one north of the QEW ($70,000)

Revise the sidewalk snow plowing program ($27,000(

Convert 10% of the passive parks to naturalized areas ($24,000)

Eliminate enhanced maintenance of grass sports fields ($40,000)

A reduction in the bus cleaning contract ($100,000)

Staff provides a business case for each of these options which will get debated at the budget meetings.

Council members are currently going through the budget books, line by line for some of them, and picking items they want more information on.  They then write-up short notes on items they wish to debate.  When all the requests are in they get debated.  It is at this point that Council members push for their pet projects and where they take positions they will want to use in the forthcoming election.

Each has to figure out where they are with their electorate.  If you were wondering why none of the Council members, except for the Mayor, has yet to file nomination papers, perhaps this will help: once you file papers you are in the race and you have to begin taking a position on matters.  And the budget, which determines the taxes people will pay, is a major matter.

When the budget is decided upon watch for the different political positions to become evident.  Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward, who chaired the Budget meeting was sounding much more “financially fluent” than she normally does, may begin her 2018 campaign for Mayor if the budget fits her longer term agenda.

Will this Council save or spend?  The city manager is turning out to be a bit of a spender – does Council want to encourage this approach?

There is $44,000 that can be saved from the tax levy if the transit service for the Hayden High students is paid for out of the Provincial Gas Tax funding – these are monies , gas taxes, the province passes along to the municipalities.

The Fire department wants four more firefighters ($361,000); a proposed increase in the dedicated Capital Infrastructure Renewal levy from .50% to .75% would add $964,000. Not being recommended for this year.

Community Development Halton is in for $86,000 – Ward 3 Councillor John Taylor is pushing hard for this one.  He will probably get his way; what he is prepared to give to get his way is unknown.

Sound of Music wants $44,000 – they argue that they bring in tons of spending to the city.  Taylor wants to see their books – again, before he gives them as much as a dime.

The Museum Board wants a Special Events Assistant ($36,000)

Other places to spend that are also not recommended by the EBC include:

Restoring Transit resources: $1 to $2.8 million.

Increased money for storm response $747,000

Phase in the OMERS contribution which would stretch out the length of time we have to pay that big lump sum charge they hit the city with.

Jiggle the amount of money we take as a levy for the hospital will cut  $300,000 this year but that amount will have to come from somewhere next year.

City manager wonders why so much time is being spent over a half a percentage point difference in budget proposals.  Is it worth a full month of expensive staff time.  It’s called DEMOCRACY people having their say.

If you look at budget scenarios chart again you will see that the difference between what staff first proposed, the status quo number, and what they came back with after council pushed back,  is less than half a percentage point.  What’s the big deal – live with it, it’s not a lot of money and the city has healthy reserves with debt permitted at 12.5% of net revenue currently at 8.4%

Having to find an additional $60 million to pay for the hospital upgrade pushes Burlington close to its self-imposed debt limits.

The hospital levy does edge us very close to that 12.5% of net revenue debt level – which is self-imposed – the province would let us go to 20% +.  What neither staff or council underline is that the hospital levy will continue to come out of taxpayers pockets – they will just call it something else.

Tax increases each year of this term of office.   Comes in at more than the 10% Mayor Goldring promised.  Watch for an explanation as to what he really meant when he made the promise.

But look at the chart with the tax increases each year of this term – that’s where the real story on this budget is.  In the first three years of the term tax increases totaled 6.63% – add in the 3.20 proposed for 2014 and you get to 9.83% over the four-year term, which keeps the tax increases below that magic 10% number the Mayor, and truth be told, most members of his Council  hung their hats on.  Add in the 2.96% we are scheduled to give the hospital and we are at 12.79%

Now Council members will say, frequently, that the hospital levy doesn’t count – but it does because what is now the hospital levy is never going to go away.  They have plans to spend that sum right through till 2031 and beyond.  When bureaucrats get their hands on a portion of your money – they don’t let it ever get back to you.

Assuming the proposed budget gets passed – and that isn’t an assumption you want to bet on – here is where your tax dollars are spent.

The first time Canadians were hit with an Income Tax was to pay for World War I – and we’ve been paying an income tax ever since.  The hospital levy is money that will always go to the city – get used to it.

It was a full session, the Community and Corporate Services Committee got through the high level overview in close to record time.  You could almost see the Council members feeling their oats.

The one area that sort of threw Council members was the comment from the city manager on the amount of time being spent on the budget.  He wanted to see as much as a month taken out of the process, arguing that far too much staff time is being taken up with relatively small amounts.

What the bureaucrat forgets is that those small amounts represent a service that people expect and want some say in.

City Manager Jeff Fielding pointed out that the Region has its budget wrapped up in December and that Burlington will still be at it in the middle of March. 

The Region has a billion dollar budget Fielding points out – but, as Mayor Goldring pointed out – they don’t have the public delegations that municipalities have.  Also Burlington basically packed it in early in December.

Councillor Taylor didn’t like the idea of the time spent on the budget being shortened.  He pointed out that the budget books were just given to them last Friday.

The schedule right now calls for the Capital budget and the Current budget to be handled at different times.  It was suggested both could be done at the same time which would cut out a few days.

Comments from the bureaucrats suggesting that the politicians spend less time on how they spend the dollars they ask citizens to pay in taxes are a hint that perhaps the political process isn’t fully understood or appreciated by the bureaucrats.

September 1, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  The Mayor went to Ottawa recently to schmooze with other Mayors and to bend the ear of Ontario Cabinet ministers who attended the Association of Municipalities in Ontario conference; an annual event.

Mayor Goldring is a member of LUMCO – a subset of the AMO organization made up of mayors from larger cities.  LUMCO – Large Urban Mayors of Ontario have a particularly messy and at times nasty issue that is difficult for them to harp on at home but one they need to come to grips with – and that is the rising cost of early responders.

Police, fireman and emergency services people are costing us a fortune but no one wants to come out and say that – one does have to get elected and suggesting we could get by with fewer police officers and fewer fire trucks and the fireman are back faster than a jack rabbit with what that will do to their response times.

All true – but the municipalities want some fairness and a lot of streamlining to the current interest arbitration process.

According to Mayor Goldring, who gets much of his data from AMO, between 2005 and 2010, salary increases for the municipal sector hovered around 5% while increases for firemen (not just men any more is it?) were 27%; police averaged 19% and EMS people saw increases of 41%.

Unsustainable and, according to Goldring “unfair”.  The Mayor is quick to add that the city is well served by its first responders.  That phrase could be turned around to read that the first responders are very well served by the city.  There are many, many members of the fire department on the province’s Sunshine list – that document that sets out who earns more than $100,000 a year.

The fireman in Burlington, and we assume across the province, have figured out how to get their claims in front of the politicians and keep them there – and so far they have been successful. So much so that the current provincial government doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to change the way the salary game is played for these essential people.

For the first year in some time a small delegation of firemen took part in the annual city budget public consultation.

At the 2011 Burlington public consultation meetings on the budget the firemen attended as a group and sat at one table and ensured council members heard their story.  Sometime later there were eight to ten firemen in the back row of city council chambers when the budget was being passed.

These are big guys and there is a threatening sense to ten or more of them being in one place.  Firemen have as much right as anyone else to demonstrate to make their point; something they did very effectively for Dalton McGuinty when he was running for office the last provincial.  Whenever he stepped off a bus there were two lines of firemen creating path for him – all wearing “Fireman for McGuinty T-shirts”, great optics and good on them for knowing how to get attention.

The municipal politicians who have to come up with the money to pay these men and women now have to pay very close attention and look for ways to get what Mayor Goldring calls for some fairness in the salary game.

Burlington has a union contract with the firemen that has been ‘in the works” since 2011.  “Some of these interest arbitrations can take as long as five years to settle” explains the Mayor.  And all too frequently he adds, “the settlement is retroactive and there is no reason given for the arbitration decision made.”

The province’s economy is better today than it was in 2011 but it is still a little on the wobbly side.  City council has to find the money to meet the arbitration decision and at the same time keep the other union contracts in line.  All this, at a time when the gap between union pay rates and that available in the private sector is widening.  Add to that the very significant pension plans that municipal civil servants have gotten for themselves and you begin to understand why politicians go gray – quickly.

With the province now being run by a minority government politics gets in the way with the Tories looking for whatever advantage they can exploit and the New Democrats doing everything they can to ensure their union members get and keep as much as they can.  And the Premier wakes up every morning hoping she can avoid a confidence vote.  Which may be the way the game is played at Queen’s Park but try and make that point at city council when the budget is being debated and the Mayor talks of his wanting to keep tax increases below 10% during the his first four-year mandate.  If the arbitration decision comes in before the budget is made final, watch for a big gulp on the part of the people in the finance department.

In a letter Progressive Conservative House Leader Jim Wilson sent a letter to his counterparts he said that: “Exceedingly generous contracts being handed out to emergency workers through arbitration system, are forcing municipal leaders to choose between raising taxes and taking fire trucks and police cruisers off the road.”  There was a hint of the possibility of some movement but it didn’t go much further than that.  Adam Radwanski said in the Globe and Mail that: “To talk to the governing Liberals and the Tories since the letter was sent is to sense that they are once again about to demonstrate their complete inability to work together – overlooking past signs of common ground in the process.

Did the Mayor manage to mention our first responder salary problems to the Premier while she was in town last Saturday?

An obvious solution would be for the Liberals to introduce legislation this fall that would implement the arbitration changes from the 2012 budget, and for the Tories to support it.  In an interview, however, Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi sounded disinclined to do that. The government’s focus, he said, is on bringing municipal leaders and emergency workers together to “develop consensus.” Other Liberals have echoed that imminent legislation is unlikely.

That the two parties are further from consensus on this issue than they have been in years can likely be chalked up to strategic calculations reports Radwanski.

 “Both sides are playing with fire. Ms. Wynne is at risk of alienating key allies, such as Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion, who has been among those leading the charge for arbitration reform. And if Mr. Hudak is seen as an obstacle to changes rather than an effective advocate for them, that could cause grief for his largely rural caucus among mayors whose small towns are being stretched especially thin.

Voters will have to decide first who should run the province before any significant decisions get made.

“If that is not enough to encourage co-operation, the simple matter of fairness should be. Even as the province had some recent success in freezing the wages of its employees, municipalities were getting stuck with double-digit salary increases in contracts awarded by arbitrators. As Mr. Wilson said in his letter, that is just not sustainable.”

Radwanski suggests that “By at least returning to the common ground they seemed to find last year, the Liberals and Tories could restore a tiny bit of faith in the minority legislature’s ability to address Ontarians’ needs. Instead, they seem poised to provide another example of its inability to do so.”

From a purely municipal perspective this is as good a reason as any to get on with a province wide election and determine just who is going to run the province – together the three stooges certainly can’t.