Aitken faces down county councillors’ budget concerns

By Kate Harries AWARE Simcoe January 5 2011
The new crew at Simcoe County Council was elected to bring change – and today, with their first examination of a $355 million budget that includes a 2 per cent increase to the tax levy, they served notice that they’re eager to settle down to the task.
But they were firmly told by Chief Administrative Officer Mark Aitken that while they can tweak, there’s no room for substantial change and they can put their sharpened pencils away.
“This budget is based on the service-level provisions that have been instructed by council and it is what it is, in terms of what’s in there,” Aitken said.

Of course, those instructions came from the last council – and this is a new council that has a mandate from an awakened and dissatisfied electorate.
It’s not only the newbies who got the message from the voters. One of the returning councillors, Severn Deputy Mayor Judith Cox, didn’t mince her words. The people she talked to during the campaign want transparency and accountability, she said.
“They’re demanding more than ever before,” she added, and rightfully so. Cox told of residents who are in tough financial straits, “people in our neighbourhood who are walking away from their homes.”
Cox said she’s been directed by a motion from Severn council to obtain a costing of county leaflets and radio ads. She said she had many complaints from taxpayers about the fact that the county would sponsor the weather on a local radio station.
The glossy brochures issued by the county before the election were a concern raised by AWARE Simcoe because they served no obvious communications purpose other than to say that incumbent councillors have been doing a great job. And there was speculation as to whether there was a link between the county’s ads on 104.1 The Dock and a vitriolic attack on AWARE Simcoe last October by 104.1 news director Brian Wicks.
Gerry Marshall, the newly elected mayor of Penetanguishene, demanded options on savings in the county’s draft budget. “I can easily see $4 million in savings,” he said.
That’s not how it works, Aitken replied. The CAO told Marshall that there’s a difference between the county’s budgeting process and “perhaps what you may be accustomed to at a local level. This is not a budget where staff and directors bring forward a wish list” he said, with councillors taking out their pencils to make cuts and “going away feeling they’ve saved $300 for the taxpayers.”
Aitken explained: “This is based on a process where by the time the budget gets to council” senior staff have “taken millions of dollars and significant numbers of FTEs (full-time equivalent staff) out of the budget to present something that is reasonable to county council.”
(Each percentage point change in the budget amounts to $1 million.)
Aitken got testy when questioned by Innisfil Mayor Barb Baguley on the communications budget, especially when she hearkened back to the last council’s $200,000 public relations splurge (in 2009, the year of Site 41) and wondered what the residual benefits have been.
“Tremendous,” he said. The expenditure “was a major spike in public relations assistance to the corporate communications department to try and educate not only the county councillors but the communications staff on how they deal with large complex media communications issues,” Aitken said.
He claimed “there was a lot of misinformation” leading to a groundswell of public opinion against the county. “There was a black eye being put on this corporation that wasn’t justified.”
Sorry, but the black eye was completely justified.
Senior staff and a small clique of councillors led by then warden Tony Guergis took decisions without consulting council and engaged in a disinformation campaign that culminated in the racist and false news release alleging that First Nations people wearing bandanas had threatened county staff. It remains deeply shaming to Simcoe County taxpayers with direct knowledge of the First Nations people involved that no apology was ever issued and that the staff responsible for the release, including communications department head Allan Greenwood, remain in positions of authority.
Fortunately, most of the councillors responsible for that campaign have been defeated. That’s a reality Aitken appears not to have come to terms with. In fact, he lectured the new council on his expectation that no one break rank on county decisions.
“Once county council has a direction, then it’s imperative that county council stands together on that direction,” he said, deploring that fact that “regardless of the votes (on Site 41) people were standing outside of the corporation and saying things that were different to what was directed by county council.”
This shouldn’t be happening in any business, he said.
Maybe so. But county council is not a business. It is a democratic institution and we the people are thankful for those councillors who have the courage to stand outside and speak the truth.
Hopefully, Aitken heard the warning from Bradford West Gwillimbury Deputy Mayor Rob Keffer who – during a presentation today by Corporate Services Manager Rick Newlove – raised the matter of a purchase of a new transfer station in West Gwillimbury. The budget includes $1 million for the site and $500,000 for a “contaminant attenuation zone.”
Keffer said he hoped that this item would come to the corporate services committee and county council before any action is taken.
Newlove replied that staff would definitely come to county council before any land purchase of that nature proceeds.
Keffer said his concern was that in the last term of council there was “a specific case” where a vote was not taken by county council and yet because it was passed in the budget it was deemed to have been okayed by council. He suggested that there be clarification in the county’s procedural bylaw to ensure that no large item can proceed merely on the basis of a line item in the budget.
Newlove replied: “I don’t know what your specifics are. I’d be glad to meet with you after to discuss the specifics you are referring to.”
Hmmm. Newlove must have been the only person in the council chamber not to have picked up on Keffer’s reference to the “final” approval of the Site 41 project that had been buried in the 2009 budget and never was the subject of formal debate and decision by county council.
Tiny Deputy Mayor George Lawrence spotted another interesting couple of lines in the environmental services budget. “Miscellaneous Income includes $1.6M in revenue from the sale of Environmental land holdings that are no longer required.”
Newlove indicated that one of the properties is Site 41. Environmental Services Director Rob McCullough said two other properties are involved. “It’s an estimate of what will happen later in the year.” He provided no other information.
It should be noted that last year Lawrence ensured that there are covenants on the Site 41 site to ensure that it not be used for waste management. If it’s to be used for agriculture as stated in a county resolution – it’s not worth $1.6 million. So what’s the plan? Stay tuned.
Gord McKay, the new mayor of Midland, asked how the process outlined by Aitken provides for councillors to inject their own priorities – for instance, if the current council decides it can only sell a one per cent increase to the public, “how would that get into this process?”
Later.
Much later.
Try next year.
Council will have the opportunity to put its own stamp on county expenditures by setting new strategic directions, Aitken said. “The budget is based on what the last council indicated they would like to see, what they perceived is a necessity.” The new council will have a chance to set its own strategic direction in the spring, to be implemented in the 2012 budget.
Bradford West Gwillimbury Mayor Doug White said the 17 returning members of council had said little during the debate because they’re the ones that set the direction for the 2011 budget. “I urge my colleagues to give the process a chance. “
County Warden Cal Patterson, the mayor of Wasaga Beach, said he was one of those who insisted on zero increase budgets when first elected to county council, but the price had to be paid later with 4 and 5 per cent increases to play catch-up. “I can tell you this is a good budget,” he said. “Two per cent is quite an achievement in itself.”
But for Dan McLean, Springwater’s new deputy mayor (who ran on a zero budget increase in his municipality), a two per cent increase is not acceptable. It’s really a three per cent increase in county spending, he pointed out, offset by a projected one per cent increase in assessment for this year. The budget offers room for cutbacks, he said.
An incorrect figure for the Simcoe County draft budget total appeared in an earlier version of this article. AWARE Simcoe regrets the error.