Spring is filled with rituals. For home owners it starts with garage sales, yard clean-ups and green thumb excursions in the garden. For district councillors the annual budget deliberation process is underway. Rituals by definition are usually repetitive, or ceremonial, and municipal budgets are no exception.
If experience is a guide, the District of Squamish will reach into taxpayers’ pockets for another double-digit combined tax/utilities increase. But let’s not despair. When it comes to municipal extravagance, we are not alone. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, expenditures are out of control in Canadian municipalities overall. The main drivers of spending increases are municipal employment growth and compensation in the form of wages and benefits well above private sector norms.
As is customary, here in Squamish, in the name of transparency and inclusiveness, council will ask the community to offer hot tips about saving money. This exercise is mostly political window dressing because the fix is in. That’s one of the reasons why community budget consultation forums are usually sparsely attended. Large chunks of the budget appear to be non-negotiable, especially policing and municipal administrative costs, both of which have been rising considerably over the past five years.
Thirteen years ago, our local courthouse was closed due to provincial cutbacks. Various iterations of council have been advised that money and time could be saved if the district lobbied the provincial government to reopen a court facility in Squamish so RCMP members would not be required to travel to the far reaches of North Vancouver to testify.
And, according to one report, it is estimated that between 2008 and 2013, $61 million in traffic fines revenue has been returned to B.C. municipalities to help with policing and public safety. It has been suggested on various occasions that if the Mounties enforced traffic regulations on a consistent basis, especially on the Sea to Sky Highway, our share of the ticket motherlode from the province could help lighten the burgeoning RCMP tab.
On another front, over a decade ago, the Adventure Centre was hatched as a self-sustaining entity, a concept that remains a pipe dream. One option to staunch the Adventure Centre tax bleed is a major public/private partnership, or sponsorship. After being submitted to successive councils, that possibility has yet to be acted on.
As well, the Squamish oceanfront development was slated to be a done deal by early April of this year. The process is now tied up in a tangle of red tape. Instead of making three large loan repayments, district administrators tell us the community will gain by amortizing the tab over 20 years. Whatever spin we put on it, a transaction that by now should have put a hefty infusion of cash into municipal coffers continues to cost taxpayers money.
