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 Abbotsford's Budget Consultations

The most important action that city council and staff can take during this year’s budget process is to produce an actual budget, not just throw numbers on a page and call it a budget.

Consider:

• The wages of city workers from their 2007 contract were cited as causing “serious financial issues” in the budget being prepared. Yet the contract sets out the wages and should have been considered and accounted for during any proper budgeting process.
• Of the roads in Abbotsford Mayor Peary stated “It’s so easy for councils to get into postponing roads as a way to balance budgets”. Playing a numbers game by deferring needed investments in roads is not “balancing the budget”. It is avoiding balancing the budget.
• Ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that are needed for the water and sewer upgrades Abbotsford needs, is ignoring and avoiding reality it is not budgeting.
• Proper budgeting leads to solid costing and contracts that avoid going 50% over budget turning $85,000,000 projects into $130,000,000 projects.
• Part of budgeting is to properly account for and record all costs associated with projects, ensuring costs are not mislabel or mis-recorded giving a misleading picture of the actual total costs; preventing a realistic evaluation of the outcomes and leading to more poor decision making based on the incomplete costing of projects.   
• Budgeting reflects reality; pie in the sky or unreasonably optimistic numbers while avoiding any consideration of numbers that reflect more realistic outcomes or possible negative outcomes is not budgeting.
• Budgeting does not ignore issues such as the lack of parking that is attached to a location and the effect such a lack of parking will have, such as happened with the Entertainment and Sports complex.
• Budgeting recognizes economic reality; it does not ignore that an economic downturn will have a serious negative effect on revenues.
• Budgeting recognizes that such revenue decreases require tight control over and reductions of spending.
• Budgeting not only considers revenue increases to balance the budget but also considers and finds expenditure (spending) reductions to balance the revenues = expenditures equation.

These are but highlights of the actions of council and staff that make it clear that what has been produced and called a budget for the City of Abbotsford has been far short of even minimal standards to be considered budgeting.

Any review of the actions and behaviours of Abbotsford city council and staff and the results of those actions and behaviours makes it clear that the only use (only purpose?) of the document produced and called a budget was in meeting the statutory requirement to produce a yearly/5 year budget.   

Budgeting is a management and planning tool. It is not telling staff to produce a document that meets X requirements.

A budget is a financial plan. A municipal budget indicates the municipal government’s income sources and allocates funds to police, roads, parks and recreation, wages, fire and the like; it includes provisions for needed infrastructure improvements to water and sewage treatment, for the levels of road maintenance actually needed (as opposed to a convenient ‘fill’ number), it includes realistic revenue numbers – not last year plus y% increase in an economic meltdown.

Fundamentally, the budgeting process is a method to improve operations; it is a continuous effort to specify what should be done to get the job completed in the best possible way. The budgeting process is a tool for obtaining the most productive and cost effective use of the city’s resources. Budgets also represent planning and control devices that enable city management and council to anticipate change and adapt to it.

Operations in today’s economic environment are complex. The budget (and control) process provides a better basis for understanding the city’s operations and for planning ahead. This increased understanding leads to faster reactions to developing events, increasing the city’s ability to perform effectively.

Budgeting is a most important financial tool – if done properly.

I propose that council and staff resolve to:

1. LISTEN to the feedback from taxpayers at the budget consultations, not just sit there, and use the good suggestions.
2. Go back to the beginning and generate a proper budget by following proper budgeting and accounting procedures.
3. Full disclosure on what revenues and expenditures are included in the budget, permitting the public to provide feedback on its priorities for spending.

While a radical change, investing time in proper budgeting would result in numerous fiscal benefits to Abbotsford and its taxpayers.