St. Albert’s Community Vision is for:
“a vibrant, innovative and thriving City that we all call home, that sustains and cherishes its unique identity and small town values. We are the Botanical Arts City.”
We certainly all call St. Albert home, although we are likely to differ in what we mean by “vibrant, innovative and thriving”. Nonetheless, small town values conveys the notion of people coming together when times are tough. Consequently, our management of the fiscal consequences of a slow economy
ought to display small town values of coming together in recognition that the current economic stress is real for all residents. This is manifested in a number of ways such as:
- the reported 30% of adults attempting suicide daily; or
- more people refused to participate in the new capital project survey than those that did (850 refused, 466 completed interviews in the capital projects prioritizing survey, 2016).
The value of coming together is something we share with the rest the Province. The Premier’s October 19 State of the Province address made it clear that “we are very unlikely to have headroom for major new spending proposals until recovery”. To this end, the Provincial government is asking municipal governments to be innovative as they exemplified by:
- Freezing the fees of post-secondary schools for the third straight year;
- Requesting a re-negotiated agreement with the Alberta Medical Association. The objective was to bring down the projected 8% yearly cost increases of the existing agreement to 2%. What have we asked the fire fighters to sacrifice? What about the police and other union and non-union City employees?
The Foundation is using the onset of the City of St. Albert’s 2017 business planning and budget discourse to offer fresh ideas as part of our advocacy mandate. To effectively do this, we draw on the preliminary budgets reports presented to Council on September 8 and the formally submitted proposed plan and budget on October 24. Additionally, we relied on Council priorities, the recently published budget planning survey results and the capital projects prioritizing survey results. This is a summary of our policy alternative report. Click for the full report.
The extent to which ongoing economic realities informed the overall budget was our focus. We concluded that overall, the City of St. Albert’s business plan and budget does not engender a spirit of small town values. We appear cut up with sustaining the Money Sense Magazine titles of best place to live or raise a family. We got these titles in the boom years, let’s show we deserve it in the bust years of now and beyond.
The budget has three parts: operating, capital and utility. Each of these have base and growth elements although named slightly different. These splits convey the notion that each sub-budget addresses resources to maintain existing services or infrastructure and those to finance growth. Furthermore, the planning horizon is three years, but the budget is for one year. A persistent question we have been asking ourselves is: how did St. Albert end up with such growth heavy budget when we have been experiencing employment and economic insecurity since 2014?
Summary Issues with City’s Budget Proposal
- The issues raised by the capital budget are:
- To what extent does the 44 growth projects cultivate and strengthen the community of St. Albert, bearing in mind that that more and more residents are experiencing despair over their economic insecurity?
- The draft budget raises the need (on page 32) of the Council to address consideration of future growth requirements and a funding approach. If this is not clear, on what basis were the growth initiatives for 2017 budget determined?
- The operating budget proposes an overall 3.1% tax increase to fund 2.9m increase from the 2016
93m to $96m. The drivers for the increased expenses were human resources related, comprising of salary, wages and benefits, thus:
- $1.3 million increase in contingency for salary adjustments.
- $1.1 million increase in salary, wages and benefits due to step increases and casual wages
- The utility budget proposal is showing an overall decrease of 2.2% due to a reduction in the supplemental capital contribution element. However, all other aspect of the bill have either been increased or remained the same.
Our Position
Throughout this report we have made a number of recommendations that we now reiterate here. The Foundation recommends:
- That the Council confirms that the meaning of our Community Vision extends to the reality that small town values conveys the notion that people come together when times are tough. That the strategy and budget needs to convey this notion at this time.
- That our management of the fiscal consequences of a slow economy ought to display small town values of coming together to support one another through difficult times including economic difficulties.
- That the Council and administration ask themselves the same questions we asked:
- – Are the identified priorities the most appropriate for 2017?
- – What other priorities should have been included?
- – If included, would they rank higher and replace any of the identified priorities?
- That the Council ask and respond to the following question regarding the Capital Budget growth initiatives:
- To what extent does the growth projects cultivate and strengthen the community of St. Albert, bearing in mind that that more and more residents are experiencing despair over their economic insecurity?
- That the Council actively explore and take advantage of innovative cost cutting opportunities that includes engaging with its non-union employees, its Unions and its collective agreements clauses, with a view to reducing or eliminating the recommended 2017 salary increases. The optics of increasing salary at a time of prolonged economic contraction is insensitive. Take a cue from what the Province did with the Alberta Medical Association.
- That the Council suspends Capital projects that do not directly contribute to either our economic sustainability or built environment sustainability pillars in the short and medium term. These
include projects relating to the Smart City Master Plan, the Millennium Park, improving access for pedestrians on Perron Street and identifying a significant asset for downtown roundabout. - That the Council and Administration creatively tackle apathy and knowledge gap of residents as part of its service delivery strategy.
- That Administration confirms whether the City’s evidence based policy practices extends to the use of the analytical tool called gender based analysis plus or equality and human rights mainstreaming tool. If not, when do they plan to implement its use?
- That the Council explores with the Administration the need to amend its business planning and budget calendar to accommodate engaging residents when they are more likely to be available and present. Summer months are not ideal.
- That the Council commits to accept, duly considers and incorporate the Foundation’s ongoing consultations with residents into the planning and budget process. We intend to report back to Council by before December 31. 2016.
The Foundation looks forward to working with the City and the Community as we work towards access to justice and economic empowerment for a more just and resilient St. Albert economy. Meanwhile, we welcome residents to share their perspective with us, together we can make a difference.
Click to access the full submission. Please be sure to comment. Share your views below so that we can truly have our views reflected in the ongoing discourse and more.
Related Report: The Family Support Services Crisis Fund Submission to Council on May 16, 2016
Contact Details:
Reez Community Foundation
www.reezcommunity.org
Ufuoma Odebala-Fregene
Founder & Executive Director
780 934 1011
ufuoma.at.reezcommunity.org