Council injects passion into city budget debate

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2024 (589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For a democratic institution to function properly, it sometimes — perhaps often — requires a messy and difficult discussion process.

It’s not supposed to be easy, but it needs to be authentic. And for political discourse to be open and accountable, it’s helpful to have those frustrating so-called truth tellers within your midst to rattle a few cages, and ruffle a few feathers as a means to engage other elected officials.

So as Brandonites begin trying to digest the news coming out of last weekend’s budget deliberations, it’s good to see the “team Brandon” approach around the council table that was previously employed by former mayor Rick Chrest finally laid to rest.

For no one who watched the live television feed on Saturday or read the Brandon Sun budget stories this week would have come away thinking that councillors were sitting around the table singing Kumbaya while rubber-stamping a 9.4 per cent property tax increase.

There was drama, there was frustration, and even a little animosity.

“I don’t think we did enough,” Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) told fellow councillors before the final budget vote was held. “We had opportunities to reduce this budget further with a couple of easy motions that probably would have reduced this down to closer to eight per cent … I think we have too many of us sitting around this table that are running the ice cream truck. You want to make everybody happy, so we’re going to make sure we put everything in. We don’t want to make hard decisions.”

Without doubt, fiscal hawks like Luebke, along with Coun. Glen Parker (Ward 9) and Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7), were unhappy with the decisions made around the council table during the budget process. Berry said he would be unable to look himself in the mirror if he voted in favour of a 9.4 per cent budget increase, and Parker exclaimed that this vote would not be council’s finest moment “by any stretch.”

Of course, it would seem that all those councillors who spoke — both in defence of the high tax rate increase and against it — felt obligated to argue their points. Truth tellers of a kind.

Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2) was among them, stating that over the years he has voted for the budget even as he disagreed with the council majority for keeping taxes too low for his liking. He further argued that hard decisions were indeed made.

“We’ve cut the outdoor water park, it’s gone. We’ve had to make some difficult decisions just to bring it in under 10 (per cent) and we’re not alone. We still have difficult decisions to make and if we want to try and get it lower, maybe we need to look at not doing drainage, maybe we need to get rid of jobs.”

To be honest, whether or not you agree with council’s decision to move forward with a 9.4 per cent tax hike, it is refreshing to see some passion around the council table.

While we certainly don’t wish for animosity between councillors, being too collegial can be detrimental to council’s decision-making process — and by extension, to the city itself.

It’s fair to say that this year’s budgeting process was a far more interesting and debate-heavy process than years past. And to be quite honest, Brandon city council is better for it.

AND YET …

We have to express one major point of contention with the process followed by the administration and council this year, particularly when it comes to the city’s 10-year capital budget documents.

On Jan. 17, we sent a request via email to city manager Ron Bowles and several other city staff asking to get a copy of the full capital budget document that Mark Allard, the city’s general manager of development services, had been showing excerpts from during a previous council meeting.

As we stated in the email, we were hoping to take a look through the document to see how the administration had categorized projects into the essential, primary amenity and secondary amenity designations.

We were told by Allard that this document is not typically made public. Yet considering the nature of the information, and the city’s stated ambition of being open and transparent, we would ask for it.

Note that projects like the outdoor water park and the downtown library improvements would be included in such a document. Yet the public was never privy to any public discussion regarding decisions to axe either of these projects during regular council meetings. The only reason we’re aware of the fact that these projects are not going forward is that councillors like Desjarlais chose to mention them in open council.

To date, we have not received a copy of the report, even after the budget process has now been completed. The little bit of information on the city website only lists categories, and not specific projects, meaning the public is being left in the dark.

This week, we were told that the city would be able to provide more details on the 10-year capital plan “later this week or early next week,” while staff examine the document in light of several changes that took place during budget deliberations.

We would caution the city administration that the public has the right to know what the city intends to spend their tax dollars on, whether that be programs, vehicles or capital projects.

That information should not be left to an entitled few around the council table.