{"id":1527,"date":"2009-12-27T04:06:16","date_gmt":"2009-12-27T11:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/breckenridge\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2011-10-13T03:31:11","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T10:31:11","slug":"another-abbotsford-fudge-a-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527","title":{"rendered":"Another Abbotsford Fudge-a-Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fudge: to avoid coming to grips with something<\/span><\/p>\n

One has to wonder why city council bothers with a budget or if they would bother with a \u2018budget\u2019 if it were not required by the province of BC\u2019s Local Government Act.<\/span><\/p>\n

While council pays lip service to creating a \u2018budget\u2019 this year\u2019s fudget (council\u2019s fudge-a-budget) process has made it unequivocally clear that the needs of the city, Reality, fiscally responsibility and common sense were of minimal (if any) concern to council in arriving at 2010\u2019s fudget-it-budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

Council\u2019s behaviour, directions to staff and staff\u2019s report highlight that council\u2019s focus is on creating a fudge-it-budget that isn\u2019t going to jeopardize their chances of re-election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Financial staff\u2019s original draft for 2010 was for a 6% increase but council directed financial staff to come up with an increase closer to 3.9% which led to the 4.4% proposal accepted by council, excerpted below.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“The capital budget (which they describe in their report as “already significantly underfunded”) did not increase in 2009 and the roads and facility infrastructure continue to deteriorate. A one per cent increase is not significant, but acknowledges the growing gap in infrastructure funding,” they wrote.<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

The authors noted several challenges in trying to meet the council’s directive: the fragility of the roads and capital projects program; an underfunded reserve fund.<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Fire services would take a significant hit of $350,000 in 2010. 2010 marks the fifth year in a row where increase will be below city costs, they said.<\/span><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

Continue to deteriorate, as in this is not the first year that council has made the decision to allow roads and facility infrastructure to deteriorate.<\/span><\/p>\n

At what point would council find it necessary to stop allowing roads and facilities to deteriorate and begin proper maintenance? When cars start disappearing into potholes? When we get a head-on collision because drivers cannot see the road marking lines in the dark or rain? When facilities have to be closed because they are unsafe or buildings start falling down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Council happily spends money on plasma flat screen televisions and on an unnecessarily, expensive large, colour electronic outdoor sign for ARC but won\u2019t spend to do the maintenance necessary to maintain ARC and other facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Money isn’t spent until the lack of maintenance causes a breakdown, such as an ice-plant, where it costs many times more to do repairs than it would have cost to do maintenance; standard operating procedure under Abbotsford\u2019s council. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fragile is not a word one wants used in describing roads and capital projects. Still that is better than underfunded in reference to the city\u2019s reserve fund; which is preferable to hearing about the growing gap<\/strong> in infrastructure funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Council opted for a significant hit to Fire services despite the danger of lengthened response times and increased property losses. Given the gamble with lives and property in that decision one wonders why councillors are opposed to a casino. Or is it just taxpayers money, property and lives council likes to gamble with?<\/span><\/p>\n

Sneaky – an increased turnaround time for development applications will have developers going to other cities and council won\u2019t have to add any meetings to handle increased city business.<\/span><\/p>\n

The need for early closure of some recreation facilities and\/or reductions in programming will cause less wear and tear on buildings so the lack of maintenance won\u2019t be as noticeable or potentially costly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reduced responsiveness to citizens as a result of reduced staff means council and senior staff won\u2019t be bothered by citizens as much and provides an excuse for avoiding\/not answering citizen\u2019s questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the existing poor levels of park maintenance who will notice increased litter or grass several inches longer?<\/span><\/p>\n

A reduced ability to repair potholes and intersection rutting should serve to provide a distraction to divert driver\u2019s attention from the inexcusable deteriorating roads to the \u201cwe\u2019re keeping taxes down\u201d potholes and rutting. Of course this policy could prove costly if citizen\u2019s start billing city hall for the cost of tires and suspensions \u2018deteriorated\u2019 by the city\u2019s deteriorated roads.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even the most cursory examination of the 2010 \u2018budget\u2019 process\/proposal makes it abundantly clear that council is aware of numerous failings of their so-called \u2018budget\u2019 \u2013 and chooses to avoid dealing with the many financial, operating and capital problems that have come to plague the City of Abbotsford precisely because of councils repeated refusal to behave with fiscal responsibility, make tough decisions and\/or deal with the fallout from their poor financial decision making and priorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phone council, write them, talk to them prior to their secret budget meeting on January 4, 2010 and ask councillors where the city\u2019s portion of the McCallum ($8.3 million) and Clearbrook ($8.3 million) interchanges ($16.6 million in total) is going to come from since it was not included in the budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tell council to stop digging Abbotsford into an ever deeper financial hole and demand council act responsibility in beginning to address the chaos council has caused the city, its finances and its taxpayers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fudge: to avoid coming to grips with something One has to wonder why city council bothers with a budget or if they would bother with a \u2018budget\u2019 if it were not required by the province of BC\u2019s Local Government Act. While council pays lip service to creating a \u2018budget\u2019 this year\u2019s fudget (council\u2019s fudge-a-budget) process has made it unequivocally clear that the needs of the city, Reality, fiscally responsibility and common sense were of minimal (if any) concern to council in arriving at 2010\u2019s fudget-it-budget. Council\u2019s behaviour, directions to staff and staff\u2019s report highlight that council\u2019s focus is on creating a fudge-it-budget that isn\u2019t going to jeopardize their chances of re-election. Financial staff\u2019s original draft for 2010 was for a 6% increase but council directed financial staff to come up with an increase closer to 3.9% which led to the 4.4% proposal accepted by council, excerpted below. “The capital budget (which they describe in their report as “already significantly underfunded”) did not increase in 2009 and the roads and facility infrastructure continue to deteriorate. A one per cent increase is not significant, but acknowledges the growing gap in infrastructure funding,” they wrote. The authors noted several challenges in trying to meet the council’s directive: the fragility of the roads and capital projects program; an underfunded reserve fund. Fire services would take a significant hit of $350,000 in 2010. 2010 marks the fifth year in a row where increase will be below city costs, they said. Continue to deteriorate, as in this is not the first year that council has made the decision to allow roads and facility infrastructure to deteriorate. At what point would council find it necessary to stop allowing roads and facilities to deteriorate and begin proper maintenance? When cars start disappearing into potholes? When we get a head-on collision because drivers cannot see the road marking lines in the dark or rain? When facilities have to be closed because they are unsafe or buildings start falling down. Council happily spends money on plasma flat screen televisions and on an unnecessarily, expensive large, colour electronic outdoor sign for ARC but won\u2019t spend to do the maintenance necessary to maintain ARC and other facilities. Money isn’t spent until the lack of maintenance causes a breakdown, such as an ice-plant, where it costs many times more to do repairs than it would have cost to do maintenance; standard operating procedure under Abbotsford\u2019s council. Fragile is not a word one wants used in describing roads and capital projects. Still that is better than underfunded in reference to the city\u2019s reserve fund; which is preferable to hearing about the growing gap in infrastructure funding. Council opted for a significant hit to Fire services despite the danger of lengthened response times and increased property losses. Given the gamble with lives and property in that decision one wonders why councillors are opposed to a casino. Or is it just taxpayers money, property and lives council likes to gamble with? Sneaky – an increased turnaround time for development applications will have developers going to other cities and council won\u2019t have to add any meetings to handle increased city business. The need for early closure of some recreation facilities and\/or reductions in programming will cause less wear and tear on buildings so the lack of maintenance won\u2019t be as noticeable or potentially costly. Reduced responsiveness to citizens as a result of reduced staff means council and senior staff won\u2019t be bothered by citizens as much and provides an excuse for avoiding\/not answering citizen\u2019s questions. With the existing poor levels of park maintenance who will notice increased litter or grass several inches longer? A reduced ability to repair potholes and intersection rutting should serve to provide a distraction to divert driver\u2019s attention from the inexcusable deteriorating roads to the \u201cwe\u2019re keeping taxes down\u201d potholes and rutting. Of course this policy could prove costly if citizen\u2019s start billing city hall for the cost of tires and suspensions \u2018deteriorated\u2019 by the city\u2019s deteriorated roads. Even the most cursory examination of the 2010 \u2018budget\u2019 process\/proposal makes it abundantly clear that council is aware of numerous failings of their so-called \u2018budget\u2019 \u2013 and chooses to avoid dealing with the many financial, operating and capital problems that have come to plague the City of Abbotsford precisely because of councils repeated refusal to behave with fiscal responsibility, make tough decisions and\/or deal with the fallout from their poor financial decision making and priorities. Phone council, write them, talk to them prior to their secret budget meeting on January 4, 2010 and ask councillors where the city\u2019s portion of the McCallum ($8.3 million) and Clearbrook ($8.3 million) interchanges ($16.6 million in total) is going to come from since it was not included in the budget. Tell council to stop digging Abbotsford into an ever deeper financial hole and demand council act responsibility in beginning to address the chaos council has caused the city, its finances and its taxpayers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,20,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-caveat-emptor","category-municipal","category-snafu"],"yoast_head":"\nAnother Abbotsford Fudge-a-Budget - James W. Breckenridge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another Abbotsford Fudge-a-Budget - James W. Breckenridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fudge: to avoid coming to grips with something One has to wonder why city council bothers with a budget or if they would bother with a \u2018budget\u2019 if it were not required by the province of BC\u2019s Local Government Act. While council pays lip service to creating a \u2018budget\u2019 this year\u2019s fudget (council\u2019s fudge-a-budget) process has made it unequivocally clear that the needs of the city, Reality, fiscally responsibility and common sense were of minimal (if any) concern to council in arriving at 2010\u2019s fudget-it-budget. Council\u2019s behaviour, directions to staff and staff\u2019s report highlight that council\u2019s focus is on creating a fudge-it-budget that isn\u2019t going to jeopardize their chances of re-election. Financial staff\u2019s original draft for 2010 was for a 6% increase but council directed financial staff to come up with an increase closer to 3.9% which led to the 4.4% proposal accepted by council, excerpted below. “The capital budget (which they describe in their report as “already significantly underfunded”) did not increase in 2009 and the roads and facility infrastructure continue to deteriorate. A one per cent increase is not significant, but acknowledges the growing gap in infrastructure funding,” they wrote. The authors noted several challenges in trying to meet the council’s directive: the fragility of the roads and capital projects program; an underfunded reserve fund. Fire services would take a significant hit of $350,000 in 2010. 2010 marks the fifth year in a row where increase will be below city costs, they said. Continue to deteriorate, as in this is not the first year that council has made the decision to allow roads and facility infrastructure to deteriorate. At what point would council find it necessary to stop allowing roads and facilities to deteriorate and begin proper maintenance? When cars start disappearing into potholes? When we get a head-on collision because drivers cannot see the road marking lines in the dark or rain? When facilities have to be closed because they are unsafe or buildings start falling down. Council happily spends money on plasma flat screen televisions and on an unnecessarily, expensive large, colour electronic outdoor sign for ARC but won\u2019t spend to do the maintenance necessary to maintain ARC and other facilities. Money isn’t spent until the lack of maintenance causes a breakdown, such as an ice-plant, where it costs many times more to do repairs than it would have cost to do maintenance; standard operating procedure under Abbotsford\u2019s council. Fragile is not a word one wants used in describing roads and capital projects. Still that is better than underfunded in reference to the city\u2019s reserve fund; which is preferable to hearing about the growing gap in infrastructure funding. Council opted for a significant hit to Fire services despite the danger of lengthened response times and increased property losses. Given the gamble with lives and property in that decision one wonders why councillors are opposed to a casino. Or is it just taxpayers money, property and lives council likes to gamble with? Sneaky – an increased turnaround time for development applications will have developers going to other cities and council won\u2019t have to add any meetings to handle increased city business. The need for early closure of some recreation facilities and\/or reductions in programming will cause less wear and tear on buildings so the lack of maintenance won\u2019t be as noticeable or potentially costly. Reduced responsiveness to citizens as a result of reduced staff means council and senior staff won\u2019t be bothered by citizens as much and provides an excuse for avoiding\/not answering citizen\u2019s questions. With the existing poor levels of park maintenance who will notice increased litter or grass several inches longer? A reduced ability to repair potholes and intersection rutting should serve to provide a distraction to divert driver\u2019s attention from the inexcusable deteriorating roads to the \u201cwe\u2019re keeping taxes down\u201d potholes and rutting. Of course this policy could prove costly if citizen\u2019s start billing city hall for the cost of tires and suspensions \u2018deteriorated\u2019 by the city\u2019s deteriorated roads. Even the most cursory examination of the 2010 \u2018budget\u2019 process\/proposal makes it abundantly clear that council is aware of numerous failings of their so-called \u2018budget\u2019 \u2013 and chooses to avoid dealing with the many financial, operating and capital problems that have come to plague the City of Abbotsford precisely because of councils repeated refusal to behave with fiscal responsibility, make tough decisions and\/or deal with the fallout from their poor financial decision making and priorities. Phone council, write them, talk to them prior to their secret budget meeting on January 4, 2010 and ask councillors where the city\u2019s portion of the McCallum ($8.3 million) and Clearbrook ($8.3 million) interchanges ($16.6 million in total) is going to come from since it was not included in the budget. Tell council to stop digging Abbotsford into an ever deeper financial hole and demand council act responsibility in beginning to address the chaos council has caused the city, its finances and its taxpayers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James W. Breckenridge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-27T11:06:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-13T10:31:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James W. Breckenridge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James W. Breckenridge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\\\/?p=1527#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\\\/?p=1527\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"James W. 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Breckenridge","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Another Abbotsford Fudge-a-Budget - James W. Breckenridge","og_description":"Fudge: to avoid coming to grips with something One has to wonder why city council bothers with a budget or if they would bother with a \u2018budget\u2019 if it were not required by the province of BC\u2019s Local Government Act. While council pays lip service to creating a \u2018budget\u2019 this year\u2019s fudget (council\u2019s fudge-a-budget) process has made it unequivocally clear that the needs of the city, Reality, fiscally responsibility and common sense were of minimal (if any) concern to council in arriving at 2010\u2019s fudget-it-budget. Council\u2019s behaviour, directions to staff and staff\u2019s report highlight that council\u2019s focus is on creating a fudge-it-budget that isn\u2019t going to jeopardize their chances of re-election. Financial staff\u2019s original draft for 2010 was for a 6% increase but council directed financial staff to come up with an increase closer to 3.9% which led to the 4.4% proposal accepted by council, excerpted below. “The capital budget (which they describe in their report as “already significantly underfunded”) did not increase in 2009 and the roads and facility infrastructure continue to deteriorate. A one per cent increase is not significant, but acknowledges the growing gap in infrastructure funding,” they wrote. The authors noted several challenges in trying to meet the council’s directive: the fragility of the roads and capital projects program; an underfunded reserve fund. Fire services would take a significant hit of $350,000 in 2010. 2010 marks the fifth year in a row where increase will be below city costs, they said. Continue to deteriorate, as in this is not the first year that council has made the decision to allow roads and facility infrastructure to deteriorate. At what point would council find it necessary to stop allowing roads and facilities to deteriorate and begin proper maintenance? When cars start disappearing into potholes? When we get a head-on collision because drivers cannot see the road marking lines in the dark or rain? When facilities have to be closed because they are unsafe or buildings start falling down. Council happily spends money on plasma flat screen televisions and on an unnecessarily, expensive large, colour electronic outdoor sign for ARC but won\u2019t spend to do the maintenance necessary to maintain ARC and other facilities. Money isn’t spent until the lack of maintenance causes a breakdown, such as an ice-plant, where it costs many times more to do repairs than it would have cost to do maintenance; standard operating procedure under Abbotsford\u2019s council. Fragile is not a word one wants used in describing roads and capital projects. Still that is better than underfunded in reference to the city\u2019s reserve fund; which is preferable to hearing about the growing gap in infrastructure funding. Council opted for a significant hit to Fire services despite the danger of lengthened response times and increased property losses. Given the gamble with lives and property in that decision one wonders why councillors are opposed to a casino. Or is it just taxpayers money, property and lives council likes to gamble with? Sneaky – an increased turnaround time for development applications will have developers going to other cities and council won\u2019t have to add any meetings to handle increased city business. The need for early closure of some recreation facilities and\/or reductions in programming will cause less wear and tear on buildings so the lack of maintenance won\u2019t be as noticeable or potentially costly. Reduced responsiveness to citizens as a result of reduced staff means council and senior staff won\u2019t be bothered by citizens as much and provides an excuse for avoiding\/not answering citizen\u2019s questions. With the existing poor levels of park maintenance who will notice increased litter or grass several inches longer? A reduced ability to repair potholes and intersection rutting should serve to provide a distraction to divert driver\u2019s attention from the inexcusable deteriorating roads to the \u201cwe\u2019re keeping taxes down\u201d potholes and rutting. Of course this policy could prove costly if citizen\u2019s start billing city hall for the cost of tires and suspensions \u2018deteriorated\u2019 by the city\u2019s deteriorated roads. Even the most cursory examination of the 2010 \u2018budget\u2019 process\/proposal makes it abundantly clear that council is aware of numerous failings of their so-called \u2018budget\u2019 \u2013 and chooses to avoid dealing with the many financial, operating and capital problems that have come to plague the City of Abbotsford precisely because of councils repeated refusal to behave with fiscal responsibility, make tough decisions and\/or deal with the fallout from their poor financial decision making and priorities. Phone council, write them, talk to them prior to their secret budget meeting on January 4, 2010 and ask councillors where the city\u2019s portion of the McCallum ($8.3 million) and Clearbrook ($8.3 million) interchanges ($16.6 million in total) is going to come from since it was not included in the budget. Tell council to stop digging Abbotsford into an ever deeper financial hole and demand council act responsibility in beginning to address the chaos council has caused the city, its finances and its taxpayers.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527","og_site_name":"James W. Breckenridge","article_published_time":"2009-12-27T11:06:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-10-13T10:31:11+00:00","author":"James W. Breckenridge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James W. Breckenridge","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.jameswbreckenridge.ca\/?p=1527"},"author":{"name":"James W. 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