{"id":10426,"date":"2015-04-22T16:50:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T20:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10426"},"modified":"2015-04-29T17:51:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T21:51:04","slug":"councillors-frustrated-with-push-back-over-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/councillors-frustrated-with-push-back-over-budget-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Councillors frustrated with “push-back” over budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If Council isn\u2019t given adequate information to make an \u201cinformed decision\u201d when it comes to reducing Aurora\u2019s proposed 3.95 per cent tax increase this year, they might just have to go it alone.<\/p>\n

That was the opinion expressed by several Councillors last week as they sought ways to further reduce the forecasted tax increase by reducing a $196,000 budget for training and development of municipal employees.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday\u2019s discussions around this component of the budget was not Council\u2019s first kick at the can but, for many, it was one too many. Talks centred on a motion brought forward by Councillor Tom Mrakas demanding specifics on how this money is spent and what impact a budget cut would have on the organization.<\/p>\n

This information was requested last month and, in his opinion, the response from staff was lacking \u2013 a view shared by others. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, we asked the CAO for a list of potential budget reductions to consider bringing it down and at no time was a reduction in the training and development budget considered at that time,\u201d said Councillor Michael Thompson. \u201cThroughout this discussion, we, as a Council, have moved forward certain motions to see a reduction and there has been push-back. The majority around Council are saying let\u2019s look at training and development, and we\u2019re not getting that response back from the CAO\u2019s office. To me, there is a divide. It just seems that, in my opinion, we\u2019re not being listened to.\u201d
\nCouncil approved Councillor Mrakas\u2019 motion 7 \u2013 2, with Mayor Geoff Dawe and Councillor Jeff Thom voting against it. <\/p>\n

Speaking in favour of the motion, Councillor Sandra Humfryes said specifics were not provided to Council on the \u201cserious implications\u201d such a reduction in the training budget would have on Town Hall. It was important to know, she said, how much of the budget was \u201cactually used year over year\u201d for training.<\/p>\n

Following Council\u2019s initial decision last month at the Committee level to slash the training budget by $100,000 for this year in a one-off cost-saving measure, this decision was reversed the following week in favour of tasking staff to look within their departments to come up with $300,000 in savings while boosting revenue by $100,000 to bring the budget in at that magic number of 3.95 per cent. <\/p>\n

At the time, however, Aurora CAO Neil Garbe said cuts to services used by residents were likely to meet that target, a prospect Councillors largely agreed was not the right way forward.<\/p>\n

Council\u2019s request last week was a \u201cfair\u201d one, said Town Treasurer Dan Elliott, but it is hampered by the fact the Town of Aurora does not have a central repository system to track training data and other items under this umbrella.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have over 200 full-time staff and over 400 part-time staff. Every single one of them are subject to training,\u201d said Mr. Elliott. \u201cMany of them are annual training, many of them take multiple courses. Accordingly, to go through and develop and create essentially a repository for 2014 of each staff person\u2019s training, the cost of the conference and what they got\u2026to go person to person, credential by credential, is going to take months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although new systems to track just this could be in place as early as this year, Councillors advocating for cuts in this department, however, expressed surprise this information wasn\u2019t already kept in a centrally located, accessible fashion, including Councillor Harold Kim, who said it is often overlooked that cutting taxes is also a service to residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder why we keep having the same budget and having the budget increased for this particular item,\u201d he said. \u201cBy budget time, if we can\u2019t be given sufficient information to make an informed decision, then I am quite happy to make a decision without it. It is a no-brainer in terms of whether you choose plowing a sidewalk or choosing to reduce the education budget for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Thompson: \u201cI am not sure what was spent last year, or why [there was an increase] year after year. Those details are important to me. At one time we talked about the tax pressure as a result and to alleviate that tax pressure with sidewalk plow service. I can tell you right now I am not going to cut sidewalk plow service if there is an opportunity to reduce training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given Mr. Elliott\u2019s statement it would take months to get the required information together, Mayor Dawe objected to the motion. Although he said he agreed it was important for Council to know what was being spent in this area of the budget, he questioned what Councillors ultimately would do with the information.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it comes down to putting money into training for staff, or putting money into snow plowing, I am pretty sure from what we\u2019ve heard the money is going to go into snow plowing, which is fine,\u201d said Mayor Dawe. \u201cThat is a decision of Council, but that is a level of service we wish to provide our residents. It is not us managing the corporation. If we want to do that, I know how we can save six salaries anyway and we can cut the budget big time. If that\u2019s how Council wishes to manage the business, I presume that is Council\u2019s prerogative and I will not support the motion for that reason. There is no concept of the work we\u2019re going to ask staff to do, the cost, and we have no idea what we\u2019re going to do with the information.\u201d
\nFor Councillor Mrakas, however, it was clear what they intended to do with the information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be able to make a decision on whether I want to put forward a reduction in this item during budget time,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that is pretty straightforward. I believe taxpayers deserve this information and I just don\u2019t understand why it is such an issue to get this information. I am sitting here [and hearing] we don\u2019t track that and it would be too expensive to track that. Yet, we are spending $200,000 for a corporation of this size to send people for training and development. Training and development is important but I don\u2019t think spending this amount of money in a year where our tax rate is at such a high level it is warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council divided on taking a second look at cutting training, education budget while staff argue compiling information would take “months.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Ia","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 16:59:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}