{"id":23598,"date":"2019-04-18T12:54:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23598"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:54:38","slug":"front-porch-perspective-my-aurora-budget-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/front-porch-perspective-my-aurora-budget-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE: My Aurora Budget Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Stephen Somerville<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal\nMinister of Finance, the Honourable Bill Morneau gave his Budget Speech a few\nweeks ago and his Ontario Counterpart, the Honourable Vic Fideli, followed last\nweek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those\nwho have been loyal readers of this column, you will know that your friendly\nscribe has pontificated on the budget process, the roles and responsibilities\nof the various levels of government and the trending of our taxes against\nvarious metrics in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I present\nbelow, for the readers\u2019 perusal, amusement and probable ridicule, my own\nhypothetical Aurora Municipal Budget Speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will have\nyou know that, due to the solemnity of the occasion, I have put on my best blue\nsuit, white shirt (with blue stripes) and a blue tie. And I am wearing a pair\nof black Italian loafers that have gold buckles. (Due to self-imposed austerity\nmeasures \u2013 i.e. my wife would not be too pleased – I have refrained from the budget\nmaking tradition of buying a new pair of shoes). I then affixed a yellow and\nwhite carnation to my suit jacket lapel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitting in\nthe Council Chamber, I would have a sip of water, then at 4:35 p.m. – just\nafter the financial markets have closed so as not to unduly alarm world markets\n\u2013 I would rise from my seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Budget\nSpeech would go something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Mayor, Councillors, ladies and gentlemen, friends,\nassembled guests \u2013 and my father-in-law, good afternoon!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It gives me a tremendous amount of pride and\nsatisfaction to rise from my seat in this great rotunda of thought and grand\ndebate to deliver, on behalf of the Mayor and his Council colleagues, my first\nBudget as Aurora\u2019s Minister of Finance.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to first thank the citizens of this community\nfor their active involvement in our special budget consultation meetings held\nearlier this year. As part of the budget process, Council was looking for\nsuggestions on how to increase non-tax revenues and how to save money on Town\nprocesses and services. Your ideas were most welcome and many of them have been\nincorporated into today\u2019s Budget.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Budget is about four P\u2019s.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is about Perspective. It is about Prudence. It is\nabout Priorities. But it is mostly about People.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perspective: Aurora is the fifth largest of the\nmunicipalities within York Region and growing at an enormous rate. So too is\nour Town\u2019s growing appetite for services and capital projects.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town annual operating budget is approximately $67.5\nMillion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town is responsible for things such as local roads,\nfire protection, garbage collection, snow ploughing, traffic control, Library,\nSeniors\u2019 Centre, recreation facilities and local land use planning needs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prudence & Priorities: The Mayor and his six Council\ncolleagues have been painstakingly going through the budget items \u2013 one at a\ntime.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this is the first Budget that our new team is\nbringing forward, we want to send a message of focus and also to set a tone.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From our discussions with Aurora residents, there is widespread\nconcern about our aging infrastructure. A significant proportion of your tax\ndollars will go toward repairing roads and sidewalks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have an ambitious ten-year capital plan to spend $286\nMillion – representing 519 capital projects. 356 of these projects are for\nrepairs and replacements, 99 are for growth and new projects and 64 are related\nto studies and other projects. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People: Our community is what we make of it. What we\nwant is to have a Town where every individual can enjoy the activities and\nprograms that our community has to offer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that there are a number of children in our\ncommunity that would love to play hockey, baseball or soccer but their families\ncannot afford the annual fees. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, we are setting aside $150,000 every year to\nbe used so that children, under the age of 19, can have access to community\nsports groups. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To encourage people in our community to vote we are also\nsetting aside $30,000 for election prizes. All those who actually cast a vote\nin municipal, provincial and federal elections will be eligible. Four draws of\n$2,500 each will be done after every election. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, our Council also believes in accountability. To\nthis end the following Ways and Means Motion will be tabled in this chamber\nthis afternoon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be it resolved that Council will direct Town Staff to\nproduce a quarterly or semi-annual scorecard or specific update for the\ncitizens of Aurora that will be published in the local newspaper so the\ncitizens can monitor the progress on these agreed upon Budget Priorities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2019 Aurora Budget document is understandable, it is\nprudent and it lays out our priorities for the next four years.  But above all, this Budget is about people\nand how we can, together, make a safer, happier, healthier and better Aurora.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank You.<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville The Federal Minister of Finance, the Honourable Bill Morneau gave his Budget Speech a few weeks ago and his Ontario Counterpart, the Honourable Vic Fideli, followed last week. For those who have been loyal readers of this column, you will know that your friendly scribe has pontificated on the budget process, the […]<\/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":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-68C","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 12:14:52","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\/23598","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=23598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}