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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. 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