HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-12-05, Page 27THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2013. PAGE 27. Continued from page 1and questions were asked.
Revenue in the proposed budget
was expected to rise by 2.41 per
cent, while department budget
changes were as follows: public
works, 1.91 per cent; homes for the
aged, 0.76 per cent; cultural
services, 2.6 per cent; the Huron
County Health Unit, -2.19 per cent;
planning and development, 3.95 per
cent; social services, 5.17 per cent;
emergency services, -0.59 per cent
and administration, 6.16 per cent.
Councillor Deb Shewfelt said he
wanted to know whether the
departments, and the county for that
matter, were in a surplus or deficit
position going into the budget
process.
“It would be nice to know,”
Shewfelt said.
Cummings, however, said that is
difficult at this time of year, saying
budgets are a bit of a “moving
target” before the end of the year.
One of the biggest items in the
budget, accounting for department
increases, Cummings said, is wages,
which are all scheduled to rise by
two per cent next year. Other item
increases, he said, were council
costs rising by $40,000 next year
and the cost of new laptop
computers for councillors, which
was an issue that would be amended
later in the meeting.
Councillors Tyler Hessel and
Bernie MacLellan both spoke
against the laptop computers, saying
it would be more efficient if council
was to buy iPads or tablets.
Hessel told councillors the
“laptop” budget could be cut in half
if council was to consider tablets,
which he felt were superior to laptop
computers anyway.
Council approved the change to
cut the $31,500 budget for
computers in half in favour of tablets
for 2014.
One of the changes proposed for
the next draft of the budget was a
reduction by MacLellan, saying that
$100,000 in the budget as funding
for the Gateway Rural Health
Research Institute in Seaforth should
be dropped.Cummings told council that the
five-year commitment to the
institute, for $100,000 per year,
ended in 2013, but it was up to
council if the grant should continue
next year or not.
MacLellan said he wasn’t
commenting on whether or not the
institute deserved the money, but
that council has a policy which he
feels works well, to not fund
anything until the organization asks
for it.
“I think we should stick to the
policy in place,” MacLellan told
council.
Council passed a motion to cut the
$100,000 for Gateway out of the
proposed budget.
EMS
Councillor Ben Van Diepenbeek
was concerned with expected
increases in the emergency services
budget, saying that because the
department has union negotiations
with its employees upcoming, the
increases for salary and benefits are
largely speculation.
“Whether it ends up going like
that or not, we don’t know,” said
Emergency Service Chief David
Lew. “We have yet to enter that
round of negotiation.”
Lew admitted, however, that the
number “may very well change”
after negotiations.
He told councillors that
emergency services lost the right to
24-hour shifts and as a result has
seen a drastic jump in the amount of
overtime being claimed.
Chief Administrative Officer
Brenda Orchard also said there are
some major question marks
surrounding the department
including the future of the
Tuckersmith ambulance station.
Councillor Bill Dowson was
concerned about the future of the
department, admitting that things
had been done “wrong” in the past
and he didn’t want that to happen
again.
“We need to take our time and do
EMS right this time,” Dowson
said.
PUBLIC WORKSPublic Works Director Dave
Laurie told councillors that he
essentially had $173,000 “to
explain” so he opened the floor to
questions from the councillors.
With ongoing savings coming
from the department, however, and
its common practice of tendering
projects very early in the year, some
councillors wanted to fight for more
accurate accounting from those in
public works.
MacLellan, who has admitted
been hard on the department, said
that with a surplus of $500,000 in
the department due to
overestimating costs of projects,
expectations should be adjusted.
The practice has been, Laurieexplained, that he takes an average
of the bids received for a similar
project when budgetting for future
projects. MacLellan argued that
because costs have been so much
lower than estimates, on average,
that for future forecasting, Laurie
should use the average accepted
tender, which would eliminate the
numbers being skewed by
ridiculously high bids causing the
average to rise.
MacLellan said that some changes
in the accounting practices over the
years have taken place and the
budget for the public works
department has likely, he estimated,
been reduced by at least $1 million,
and the department is still running a$500,000 surplus.
He told Laurie he’d like to see
future estimates more accurately
reflect the savings the department
has been experiencing year over
year, which Laurie said he could
accommodate.
In Laurie’s budget, nearly
$700,000 is scheduled to be spent on
the department’s fleet next year,
including the purchasing of a loader,
three dump trucks and a pickup
truck.
The capital purchases, he said,
were keeping right with the
department’s annual capital
purchase target of $700,000. Next
Levy to rise, taxes to fall under proposed budget
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Listening intently
The Auburn Lions Club hosted breakfast with Santa on Sunday and three-year-old Chloe
Verwey, centre, and four-year-old Patrick Mohan, right, were hanging on his every word. (Vicky
Bremner photo)
Continued on page 28