Editor,
In last week’s paper, you mention two interesting points. Both tie together.
The first was that some councillors feel our staff has grown too large and expensive. In 2022, I did an informal survey of three municipalities. I asked for staff numbers, not including water services, library, or fire, to get as close a comparison as possible. Chatsworth 39, Georgian Bluffs 45, Meaford 94. The other municipalities have hired extras since then, about half the addition to staff that Meaford has. Meaford has unique needs, that’s obvious, but not so many to require a staff more than double in a municipality that arguably is less efficient than the other two. These numbers were shared with council. Our water department started at 3 employees, supposedly to save $25,000 per year over subcontracting. That staff has since grown to 8. OCWA services both Georgian Bluffs and South Bruce Peninsula with seven people. An email to OCWA (our budget and quantities are public) got the response that they could promise substantial savings without service reductions.
The second point was the lack of public interaction at budget meetings. I can’t speak for everybody, but how long can the public share information or suggestions to council to suggest financial savings, suggestions which are ignored without consideration and the wasteful spending continue, before it’s an exercise in frustration that proves nothing? Nobody on council will deny the frequency of emails from me or several other taxpayers. In my case, the big ticket items are the money-bleeding vehicle lease program, a library which costs over $2300 per day to operate, a building department that causes such unnecessary delays that many contractors won’t work here, or charge a surcharge. Equally often, I protest certain line expenses in the roads department for repairs that wouldn’t even be necessary if maintenance practices more closely followed standard accepted practices, and this year, purchase of a completely unnecessary new ‘toy’. All items mentioned here have been brought up, with financial information to verify, and are still in version 3 of the 2025 budget.
What joins these two issues together is obvious: nothing from the residents seems to be considered worthwhile, until it becomes the idea of staff or council. Three years ago, I suggested to a councillor a less expensive alternative to the replacement of the twin townline bridges, an idea which was immediately shot down. Two years later, when staff suggested the same approach, the same councillor praised their actions.
So, seriously, when hundreds of thousands are spent unnecessarily every year just because nobody is listening, why would we take the time off for a daytime meeting to be ignored again? One of the many definitions of a municipal councillor is ‘the representative of the taxpayer’. That would imply that the taxpayer’s input is heard, but apparently not often.
Bill Cameron, Bognor
