Colwood council has given its preliminary stamp of approval to this year’s budget, minus the support of one councillor.
Coun. Rob Martin voted against the City’s five year financial plan citing philosophical reasons stemming from the review process of the municipality’s core budget, a roughly $17 million figure that encompasses the bulk of the City’s recuring expenses.
Martin explained that he opposed the budget because he would have preferred to see council review its expenditures more thoroughly, citing a brief process during a pair of Committee of the Whole meetings on March 1 and 2.
“Core is where this council gets to determine from a philosophical standpoint where this City’s moving,” he told council. “I’m not talking about looking at how many pencils or how much paper we are buying, but we need to systematically look at every department and (ask) ‘is this department meeting our goals of what council wants to achieve moving forward?’. And if we can’t philosophically answer that question, then we haven’t reviewed the budget thoroughly enough.”
Mayor Carol Hamilton noted that the budget calls for a minimal tax lift – a modest 2 per cent increase is planned – but that improvements in the process next year could be made that would allow for an expanded review.
Coun. Martin later clarified to the Gazette that he thought the budget was sound and that if unanimity was required, he would have voted in favour of it.
“I don’t think there’s anything that the community needs to be concerned about. I actually think this is a very healthy budget. I would just prefer to be a little more diligent when it comes to reviewing it,” he said. “If I had a legitimate concern that we were spending money where we shouldn’t or that wasn’t actually meeting our values or goals as a council, I would be a lot more vocal than what I was.”
Preliminary readings were originally scheduled for council’s first meeting of the month on April 10, but concern over a new capital expenditure at the jointly-owned West Shore RCMP building delayed the process.
A report was presented to council this week and the $76,000 project to upgrade the detachment’s HVAC system was eventually included in the budget through the use of reserve funds.
Coun. Cynthia Day and Mayor Hamilton both expressed that they’d like to see better communication between the owners of the building, which also includes Langford and View Royal.
A landlord committee exists, but director of finance Andrew deBucy couldn’t find any meeting minutes past 2012.
The capital expense approval included a recommendation that the landlord committee meet before payment is made.
“I’m looking forward to the committee getting together and really talking about what their plan is,” Coun. Day said. “I would like to make sure that the improvements that we make are money well spent.”
joel.tansey@goldstreamgazette.com
Twitter: @joelgazette