Budget In Disneyland: BENN

Published 06/24/2023 · Updated 06/24/2023

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Doesn’t anyone who reports to work down at city hall not see the disconnect? Disconnect as between reality and fantasy.

Do they not, even for just a passing, lucid moment or two, recall from just a few months ago the whopping big holes in the operating budgets of both the city and OC Transpo?

The budget that stated that $54 million in as-yet-to-be-identified efficiencies would need to be found, with $47 million of that coming from OC Transpo. And that is before factoring in the shortfalls in the illusion of the $1 billion from federal and provincial governments that staff plugged into the middle of the budget.

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It was recently reported that the city lacks sufficient funding to properly support the paramedical services it is required to provide. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has begged the province for more money. To no avail. Reality bites. Hard.

On to the disconnect. On to Fantasy Land. Not the Disney theme park – at least it exists.

City council recently agreed to fund the launching of an initiative to develop-better promote-whatever a more prominent night life in the city. How much? It will start with $40,000, which in fairness is a rounding error on the mayor’s office budget for frivolous initiatives. However, the plan involves hiring a nightlife commissioner. And where there is a commissioner, there will be a commissioner’s staff. Staff being a plural. And where there is a staff, there will be program expenditures.

Here’s a thought. Why not ask ex-mayor Jim Watson. He who insisted on a mid-September 2019 launch of the LRT so that he would not have to postpone his trip to personally experience the nightlife in Amsterdam? But I digress.

Over to OC Transpo, the public transit service that has a ridership problem. They are slogging along at about 65- to 70-per-cent of pre-pandemic volumes. In anticipation of the eventual, but long overdue completion of the expanded north-south O-Train service, OC Transpo is planning on spending $1 million to promote the concept of riders taking the train from and to the south end of the city. At current fares, that represents about 270,000 incremental fares. Over an extended period of time, who knows? Maybe they will get an incremental 270,000 new riders. Not the ones who are currently taking the bus from and to the south end. Those fares are not incremental. But I digress.

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Let me cut to the chase. The city cannot afford to meet its statutory obligations. It needs to find $54 million of efficiencies. It needs to find an untold amount to cover the shortfall from federal and provincial government program funding and grants. Yet it can find money not in the budget for a night commissioner and an OC Transpo self-congratulatory promotional campaign for a long overdue train service?

I am left to imagine a scene from some dim-witted sitcom where the wife is bemoaning the fact that they don’t have enough money for food and rent, so she and her husband go down to the local pub to discuss their options. At least that is fantasy. Sigh.

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.

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