City Budget Debate
On my way to hear Renee Fleming’s spectacular recital at the Orpheum Theatre last night, I stopped by the ThinkCity debate on the 2010 City Budget in order to deliver the NPA response, and to hear Paul Sullivan of the Fair Tax Coalition and Professor Douglas McArthur spar over the new budget.
It was highly educational, quite entertaining and there was a thorough and lively exchange of views between the two main proponents and the audience.
It was disappointing that Vision didn’t see fit to send a representative to the debate after the strong support they received from ThinkCity before the election. I felt the comments offered by the COPE representative and myself as the NPA representative added value to the discussion and addressed points not raised in the debate.
My own remarks follow:
My name is Sean Bickerton and I speak today as a member of the Board of Directors of the Non-Partisan Association, as a former candidate for City Council during the last civic election, a small business owner and resident of Vancouver.
We’re told that our city is facing a $60,000,000 budget shortfall, and that after identifying $30,000,000 in one-off savings, our Mayor is now looking to identify an additional $30,000,000 in savings through staff and program cuts. I feel it’s a shame we didn’t know about this shortfall before they started firing the stop non-political staff at City Hall, costing taxpayers millions in severance packages and new-hire incentives.
Nonetheless, while alarming, the budget crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring the city together and re-examine our priorities and I commend ThinkCity for doing exactly that this evening. Working together and taking the best ideas offered, we could implement far-reaching, imaginative solutions that would avoid painful cuts to critical services while saving the city money in the long run, not just this budget cycle.
Unfortunately, though, consultation has been poor at best, and Mayor Robertson is resorting instead to short-term, short-sighted measures that don’t change the fundamentals, and could leave us in bad shape for years to come.
It is particularly painful to see hours at libraries, sports facilities and community centres being cut, and our beloved McMillan-Bloedel Conservatory axed when alternative financing is available. If we don’t invest in our youth and those facing challenges today, we will pay an even greater price for that neglect long into the future.
Where I agree with the Mayor is the need to keep any tax increase under 2% during hard times. I also agree with continuing the politically difficult tax shift from small businesses at least, which are currently taxed on their property at the highest rate in Canada. Small businesses generate 60% of all new jobs, and in a city with few head offices, we need to foster small business and entrepreneurship.
I’m also pleased to see Mayor Robertson’s administration restore its support for our embattled arts sector after cutting the arts budget 9% his first year in office. The arts are vital to Vancouver’s creative economy and need our support right now.
I’m so concerned about the state of the arts in Vancouver that I’m hosting a high-levl review on January 30 in the Revue Stage at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island. I encourage you to join a blue-ribbon panel of top leaders in the City’s Arts, Business and Funding communities for a review of the city’s inadequate arts infrastructure alongside a parallel effort to address the need for more sustainable funding models in these wrenching economic times. So I want to salute Council’s renewed arts support in this context.
But where I find myself in disagreement with the Mayor’s misplaced priorities is with his insistence on hiring 100 new police officers at a cost of $12,000,000 a year when we already have the highest number of police per capita in Canada and crime rates have droped 20% over the past four years.
There is a better solution. Our police spend 1/3 of their time dealing with mental-health-related issues. Why not hire ten social workers to ensure that two are on call 24/7 working in direct support of the police, freeing them for more urgent priorities? It would cost less than $1,000,000 / year instead of $12,000,000, and the net savings of $11,000,000 equals 1/3 of the total savings the Mayor is seeking.
Other savings opportunities abound. Peter Ladner reports in Business In Vancouver Magazine that there are $30,000,000 in unpaid fines and bylaw violations owing to the city, and suggests asking the the province to stop renewing drivers licenses until all city fines are paid. That would solve the problem in one stroke.
He also suggests asking all city managers to forego salary increases next year, which would produce $1.5 million in savings. If the unions would agree to do the same – in exchange for no staff layoffs – that would produce another $20,000,000 in savings.
For me, cutting libraries and parks while adding 100 additional police we don’t need makes absolutely no sense and may generate a self-fulfilling prophecy of a lost generation. I urge Mayor Robertson and Council to re-think these wrong-headed priorities and bring the city together instead of dividing us with short-sighted cuts to core services.
My thanks to ThinkCity for bringing us together this evening, and my thanks to you for your kind attention.
Thank you!
