A speech worth half a million bucks

BLOG #599: It was showdown time with the boards and commissions when city council met yesterday to continue consideration of its 2012 budget. The police department made a conciliatory speech – and won. The health unit sent a defiant letter – and lost.

Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 – London

Maybe the secret to winning in this age of technology is not to use any of the new gadgetry. By relying on old fashioned stand-up speech making yesterday the London Police Service earned $500,000.

On the other hand, the Middlesex-London Health Unit mailed a letter and it could end up costing them a lot more.

Yesterday was showdown time in the 2012 City of London budget cycle, the day when several boards and commissions playing reluctant in bowing to city council’s demands for budget cuts were hauled in for explanation.

With three weeks to go under D-Day, the budget stood yesterday morning at 1.6 percentage points above the zero increase Mayor Joe Fontana has promised for the four years of his term. If there was any hope of getting there, the police department, the health unit and the London-Middlesex Housing Corp. had to deliver on a collective $2.7 million cut in the monies they get from city taxpayers.

And council has been particularly prickly and vociferous about getting this, going so far as to have city solicitor Jim Barber research whether London would be within its rights to demand compliance. Like many things in the relationship between municipalities and provincial powers, the issue isn’t perfectly clear but it doesn’t tilt our way.

Nevertheless, the city does have the power of first refusal so to speak, forcing the other side to appeal to a provincial arbitration process.

So with that threat hanging and $1.5 million over the target set by council, Police Chief Brad Duncan, in his crisp dress whites, stepped to the podium under the bright lights armed with a pair of well-creased dark suits. They would be Michael Deeb, chairperson of the London Police Services Board, and Paul Paolatto, a city-appointed member.

Together this trio poured out a passionate 45-minute verbal presentation that said, to quote Chief Duncan, essentially this: “Our budget is reflective of the economic reality of the community, keeping in mind the security of our community.” Or as Mr. Deeb put it: “We recognize there is financial and economic pressure and we are trying to balance our priorities.”

Those priorities, the chief would explain, included slipping response times on crimes of lower priority, rising demands for stepped up patrols in some parts of the city, increasing calls to deal with mental health issues that aren’t really police work at all. Shrouding this is an antiquated arbitration system which has allowed the value of London police officers to be defined on a provincial basis – a system both the police board officials and council members agreed is unsustainable.

Despite all the needs and wants, pitfalls and problems, however, the police services board laid a $1 million budget cut on the council table. The chief called that “a reasonable and responsible approach given the pressures we are facing.”

A couple of hours later, with the police delegation watching from the public gallery, Councillor Nancy Branscombe, perhaps the most outspoken council member on rising policing costs over the past five years, summed up the decision: “We thank them for their one million and they are on their way.”

It won’t be official until Feb. 21, but that’s about as good as golden.

Middlesex-London Health Unit, on the other hand, was decidedly less successful. Council wanted a $596,000 reduction in their request for funding from the city. In a letter two weeks ago Graham Pollett, the medical officer of health, defiantly offered $100,000. He showed up yesterday with nothing else but answers to increasingly frosty questions. What he got as a result was a dressing down.

The city’s relationship with the health unit is complicated. Currently London pays 33 per cent of the health unit’s costs, the provincial government most of the rest. A few years ago the provincial government proposed a 75 / 25 split in costs and many health units in southwestern Ontario are now on that formula.

Dr. Pollett promised London would be there within 10 years. And in the past five years, while others have moved to the formula and while the local health unit has seen increases in its provincial grants and has even added 38 people to its staff, London’s share remained relatively constant.

“In our case you took the money and continued to bill us at 33 per cent,” Mayor Fontana told Dr. Pollett. “There’s no doubt you have a mandate, but I’m a little troubled that our staff has a permanent hiring freeze, our management has taken four years of zero increase, we’ve eliminated middle management people, even the police have frozen management salaries. You’ve gone up 15 per cent.

“Why should the city carry the burden? We’re not paying more, true, but we’re paying more than our share.”

And a couple of hours later, council moved to ask the health unit “again to achieve its target.”

Said Mayor Fontana: “Should they not, there are remedies available to us to try and achieve what would be a fair and equitable contribution on our part to get to 25 per cent.”

Those remedies are said to include an appeal to a provincial assessor, a move that sounds more timid than it is, although it is risky too. Clearly, though, it begins a game of chicken that will come to a head Feb. 21.

Meantime, the London Middlesex Housing Corp. dipped into a surplus of $300,000 saved in 2011 by the weather and added another $102,000 in budget cuts to give $402,000 back to the city. It wasn’t the $580,000 requested, but it was deemed sufficient.

As the gavel came down on the day’s work, which included some significant additions to the budget, council had inched almost two-tenths of a per cent closer to zero. This morning the tax rate increase stands at 1.44 per cent. Next week, though, staff will present what is called a B List of possible service and program cuts. Chain saws are apparently standing by.