There is no question that Council needs to address the excessive expense growth that has been happening for some time. My number one recommendation to turn things around is to introduce Zero Based Budgeting. Zero Based budgeting is where you start each budget year with a clean sheet of paper and bill your budget based on what you need for next year and not what you spent last year. This will reverse the tendency for excessive annual expense growth and eliminate the possibility of padding budgets. First and foremost Council needs to resist staffs complaints that Zero Based Budging is too time consuming and not be intimidated by those who will argue vigorously that it is just too difficult to implement.

Admin:    I'm not sure that most of us really understand what that is but if it will stop those crazy annual budget increases I'm all for it.

I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of Jim Hutton's paper on Owen Sound's history of routine budget increases that were much more than inflation. What struck me the most was how council routinely approved large budget increases year after year without any regard tor the taxpayer's ability to pay for it. The one on the Art Gallery was really bad. They increased their budget by about 80% in just four years. Why would they do this? They knew full well that only a small group of people believe that we should even have an art gallery let alnoe give them more money. I don't know about you but this year I am only voting for people who agree to stop this nonsense.

Admin:    Well said Bill

If you want to keep taxes down then we can't afford to keep paying for services that people are not using. I can't believe that our city council voted to keep this service going this year. I feel sorry for the few people that depend on the bus but we just can't afford to keep this going. Perhaps the city could consider a less expensive way of helpint the few that depend on the bus.

Admin:    Well said Joan. You are not the only one who has said that we no longer can afford to keep the busses running. This has been one of the hottest topics this year.