Mayor’s 2010 Budget Challenge
The people of Ottawa elected me in 2006 to put a lid on runaway spending increases at City Hall. And after three years as Mayor I am more convinced than ever that the City does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. My commitment to reducing spending on behalf of the citizens of Ottawa has not wavered. Last week, Committee chairs released their budget estimates, and I am disappointed with the results. The current estimates, left unchecked, will collectively cost the average homeowner $293 more in annual property taxes and levies; an 8% increase over 2009. And this does not include an expected 9% rise in water and sewer rates. With inflation at historically low levels, these increases don’t make sense. The unfortunate reality is that rising taxes and additional fees hurt low-income families and seniors the most. Unemployment is up slightly, more people are living on the edge, pensioners will see little growth in the coming year and yet the Committees are piling on additional costs at a time when we can least afford it. Ottawa residents are working hard to live within their means and I am again asking Council to do the same. On November 17th, the Audit, Budget and Finance (ABF) Committee began its work with a mandate to develop a budget that our residents can afford. The budget pressures being addressed are significant: The rare piece of good news for 2010 is the $19.2 million in costs that the province is uploading from the Ontario Disability Support Program. Although I would like to see no tax increases, I’m concerned that some of my Council colleagues believe residents can pay more again this year. Nonetheless, I am determined to work with those Councilors who are prepared to roll up their sleeves to make a substantial dent in City spending. While a zero tax increase is unlikely with this Council, bringing spending and tax increases down to a moderate level, near 3%, is a goal that needs to be achieved. It is in the best long-term interest of Ottawa, and a necessity for our residents struggling in these difficult times. The challenge for the ABF Committee is to scrutinize the City’s approximately $2.2 billion operating and $500 million capital budgets, a task made all that more difficult since the Standing Committees failed to bring forward any significant spending reduction options. The City’s overall budget can be reduced, but it will require your support and courage from your elected representatives. For example, one of the City’s biggest costs is our payroll. Where we can, we need to ask if positions that have become vacant need to be re-hired, or whether we can continue to deliver the same services without them. The Finance Committee also needs to put back on the table the options that were rejected by the Standing Committees. We need to scrutinize not only new capital projects, but review projects that were put on the books in prior years. New or augmented services that Council approved during the year, before we knew the overall financial picture, need to be reconsidered. I am prepared to roll up my sleeves and work with my Council colleagues at the ABF Committee, and again at full Council. It is our responsibility to review all ideas and options to deliver the lowest possible tax increase while respecting the Fiscal Framework that Council endorsed in 2007. It is time for Council to do what our citizens expect and conduct a hard-nosed business-like review of City spending. Please phone your Councillor if you agree that getting control of the tax bill is worth their time and effort. It’s my number one priority.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 am
STOP SPENDING LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW.
A library we don’t need, a green bin plan that we don’t need; STOP pushing spending up, bring expenses down.
That’s all I have to say.
Thank you, Mayor, for being the ONLY voice of reason.
–GJ–
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 am
The finances of this City are being handled like a carnival “shell game”.
Until such time as the unionized labour force in this City is “contained” - we are all doomed and that also includes our unionized labour force !
Fix the labour force issue and we will have money available for spending and we’ll also have ongoing surpluses !
Anyone who thinks that the residents of this City can sustain such increases in their taxes must not be living under the City of Ottawa umbrella !
Kevin Shea
Ottawa
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Thank you Larry for working on lower down the tax hike. City councillors spend the residents’ tax money like crazy and it looks like nobody can do anything for them.
As far as I know from my friends, Ottawa’s property tax is 3 times higher than Calgary and 5 times higher than some of the cities in British Columbia. Are most of the cities in Canada suffering such a high tax like Ottawa?
November 24th, 2009 at 10:48 am
How about cut the green bin program to begin your “bring down the tax” task.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:30 am
The City Councillors must stop spending like our pockets are bottomless pitts of cash. we do not need a new library nor do we need the green bin.
Unionized workers and a big spending City Council is leading to the financial destruction of this city.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Cut the Green Bin program.
City Councillors should take a salary cut.
November 24th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
It’s amazing that so many people don’t understand the property tax system. Some people & councillors claim that increases of 3-5% are justified because of inflation is a complete fallacy. The mil rate adjusts to the value of your property - as the property increases in value, the dollar amount of the tax bill increases accordingly. Isn’t that the purpose of MPAC?
Consider the reality - if the tax rate increases 3% every year - we’ll soon reach the point where taxpayers are paying 100% of the value of their homes every year in tax.
The mayor gets this. Council needs a remedial math course!
November 25th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Please explain how low taxes are going together with hiring garbage inspectors and green bin program?
November 25th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
My wife & I decided to move to Ottawa this June because we thought that it was a city with a vision and great future…
I think I didn’t do my homework right… City Councillors who think money grows on trees, programs like the green bin recycling that will cost more - Coun. Hume replied to me via email that the contracts had already been signed therefore can’t be cancelled; heck no, we know how much cancelling contracts can costs…
We also found out that the bus service is probably one of the worst in all the cities I’ve lived or visited… practically never on time - several times even leaving before it was due to leave?!?!
All in all, the only good that seems to come out of this is that I still feel that its a beautiful city that just needs to be run by councillors with vision and not councillors who seem to only be out there spending…
The only other positive I see is that many taxpayers can’t wait until the next election…
November 25th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
And now the Auditor General’s report on Transpo and Traffic employees? No one is managing the shop.
Bring out the Green bins and I can show where the waste should go.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
TO Mark and family: Ottawa is a great city with a wonderful future. Unfortunately we’ve had a decade of ineffective councillors. Amalgamation was a bad idea. City managers opt to spend tons of money on solutions where there should not be a problem.
Despite bad decisions, Ottawa lives on. We still have the canal… Gatineau park… and the Works for burgers! lol
Welcome to Ottawa!
November 26th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
The green bin program should have started years ago. If residents use it (and they really should), it will divert large amounts of material from our landfill into something useful (compost). In the long run this will save us money.
How much do you think it will cost to develop a new landfill? Something greater than $100 million! Just look what happened to Toronto as they ran out of landfill space years ago and all of their garbage is trucked out of the city. Greenbin use and recycling is mandatory there and residents now pay a lot more for garbage collection. In fact, you pay based on the waste you generate. The more wasteful residents need a larger garbage can and the city charges more for this. Our flat rate system isn’t working because the 3 bag limit is simply never enforced and many residents dump far more (5, 6, or 7 bags) every week. If those people lived in Toronto, it would be very expensive to be so wasteful! I suspect that our council will wait until the landfill is completely full before taking any action to correct this.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Re: green bins, black bins, blue bins - probably future orange and pink bins too for that matter :
- High Efficiency Incineration - give everything to Rod Bryden ( Plasco ) !!!!
Imagine if we had Councillors in this City with the intelligence and vision of a Rod Bryden - we wouldn’t be discussing all of the current problems that we are discussing - all of the wasted tax dollars with no accountability etc. - we might actually have a smooth running, effective and FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE city.
At the next election - most of the Concillors shoudl be turfed out - even if they are replaced with people who have no experience in muicipal politics - it cannot be any worse than what we have today !
Kevin Shea
Ottawa
November 28th, 2009 at 1:45 am
Larry:
Do you think we can find $3 million to buy the St. Thomas School property to make it into a mixed-use Community Centre for Crystal Beach, Lakeview, Rocky Point, Crystal Bay, Creek’s End Lane, Creekside, Stonehedge and Bells Corners residents to use? Numerous recreational needs studies have shown we need a Community Centre, City staff agree we need one and St. Thomas School is closed, empty and for sale now.
We have two private schools, the Ottawa Waldorf School and the Great River School, who are interested in moving to the building to operate a not-for-profit school with a child care. Their financial contribution can help make purchasing the building more financially viable. They’d also like to deliver the recreational and cultural programming for the City (like Dovercourt that makes a profit every year). If we lose this opportunity to have a Community Centre now - we will probably not have one for years, if ever.
November 28th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I see the green bin has been moved to the tax bill, so we are still going to be paying for it, the uproar was that we were paying for it at all after being told it was revenue neutral. Shifting it to the tax bill is not canceling it. As for the spending, yes, it is out of control. The council, the majority of which will hopefully be replaced in 2010, needs to start looking at reality and instead of looking at the mega projects like the library, LL, LRT, etc etc, focus on the core requirements and needs of the city as a whole, not the individual wards. I care about the city, not the Glebe, not Kanata, not Orleans, but the municipality of OTTAWA. Unlike some I realize that the Mayor has been waylaid at every possible turn by incompetent councilors that are still resentful of him after all these years, only a few supported him during his trial and the rest were hoping that he would be convicted and give up his seat.
I can only say they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves, it is too bad the Mayor didn’t have the authority to fire them.
Another thing that this city has to look at is the enormous amount of money being paid in SWE to the unionized city employees, there are a lot of services that can be privatized and contracted out. OC Transpo doesn’t need to be run by the city, neither does the snow and ice removal, road repairs, sewage control, all that can be contracted and the contract be written in such a way that the city is protected. A simple clause stating that in case of strike or other conflicts by the contractor then the contractor is responsible to ensure service continues at the level specified in the contract, no more lucrative clauses, no more big bonuses, the city would not be on the hook for pensions or benefits, that then becomes the responsibility of the contractor.
You are a businessman Larry, if you want to get re-elected, then start running this city like a business, businesses are there to make a profit and keep shareholders happy, in this case the taxpayer is the shareholder and a lot of us are not happy.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Stop blaming City Employees for the problems we have with high taxes. It’s not the Unionized employees that are making the big bucks. We have a problem with Management. Ask City Employees how to save money and you may be surprised of what they will have to say. Local 503 came up with many suggestions on how to save money and some of these suggestions are on the way to being utilized.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Of course nothing mentionned about that so I will add that. Why this city is still insisting on cutting on transit each and every year just to do little to ease the budget pains not to mention the over-exaggerating fare hikes in order to compete for the highest fares in the country. Clearly the reason behind those cuts is not because of low ridership but purely for budget reasons.
All of those reduction efforts will be annulled quickly via the tens of millions in additionnal costs due to suburban sprawl… yet sounds like silence on that though. Hopefully, residents will fight against those silly cuts and fare hikes.
On the flip side though, the green bin fees proposed by the P & E should be slashed by at least half - that was a silly measure and the wages shouldn’t go over the inflation rate for the time being the hourly wage is twice over the minimum wage ($9.75/hour) for most. However, the politicians should give the example and cut their wages by at least 20%.
And right this is not a 3-4% increase if we take account all the fee increases proposed. Once again, transit users will be among the worst if not the worst hit in terms of increases.
Mike Harris’s effects to this city are still disastrous as you can see.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Wil sounds like HE is a Unionized City employee !! The fact is Wil - we have too many unionized employees in this City, and a lot of them are overpaid and underworked !! Now tell me - do you believe in this type of waste of taxpayers dollars ??
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 am
Please make public names of councillors that are supporting the green box and hiring the green box inspectors.
Thank you.
December 5th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
One last point that I would like to make regarding Wil’s comment that unionized employees in this city are not a large reason for our high taxes and for the need to keep raising our taxes :
Wil - 83% of the Police Services budget is needed just to pay for salaries and benefits !
- The largest challenge in this City right now ( and it has been the largest challenge for many years now - is to get a handle on the number of municipal employees and their compensation ! Until that is addressed - all we have to look forward to is higher and higher taxes !
December 6th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Cre47 refers to “suburban sprawl.” Sorry to quibble, but we are NOT sprawl. We are the results of your ever-so-desired amalgamation. Funny how you are more than happy to grab our property taxes now that we are part of the city of Ottawa, yet you so resent having to pay for our services. Can’t have it both ways, Cre.
What I would like to know from Mayor O’Brien is how much credit (or blame) is he accepting for the current financial mess the city is in.
A $20,000 going-away party? I don’t make that much per YEAR!! Severence pay for someone who is eligible for retirement? 15 keys to the city at a cost of $18,400+ per key? A single key costs more than I make in a single year. An auditor general who gets an extra $100k top-up on his pension. I don’t get a pension.
And yet I somehow continue to find ways to pay my property taxes and once again will be asked to pay more and more and more.
Were these expenditures the Mayor’s doing? Kirkpatrick’s fault? Who is responsible and who is going to fix it. I’m so at the end of my rope and I want answers.