Upon reviewing the draft budget presented to Council on November 8, my overall impression was that the primary objective of the budget was to increase the size of the Town’s bureaucracy. One thing we know about bureaucracies is that they have a desire and an inclination to grow. Mr. Derricott took up the position of CAO at the beginning of the year and seems to have spent his time dreaming about how to increase the size of his bureaucracy through an organizational visioning process with his managerial staff. The message from CAO Derricott in the draft budget included a warning, “The truth is that many of these services are at risk of degrading if we do not take immediate and decisive action to right size and properly resource our organization to match the community we serve”, an example, in my view, of the pressure that Derricott and the Administration put on Town Council to approve the budget and the ballooning of the size of the Administration. Whole new organizational charts (page 12 of draft budget), for an expanded Administration, to be achieved over the next three years were presented with no clarity as to the number of new management staff to be hired and why. Some of the line items in the draft had substantial increases, such as the Office of the CAO having salaries and benefits increase by $453,000 (page 20 of the draft budget), a 95% increase, with no explanation as to why.

As declared in the Administration’s press release on November 8, “This budget is the next step to becoming appropriately sized and funded.” At its core, in my view, this is what this budget is primarily about. Introducing the budget at the November 8 Council Meeting, Katherine Van Keimpema, Executive Director, Corporate Services, warned Council, “We have been doing more with less. We are now at a critical juncture and can no longer continue to do so” in terms of “maintaining current service levels”. A “critical juncture”, that sounds serious.

I note that with respect to the Council’s budget deliberations on November 15 that the first hour of the presentation by Katherine Van Keimpema was essentially taken up as a sales pitch as to why it was necessary to increase the size of the Town’s Administration. I am surprized by the need for such an abrupt change and expansion of the administrative organization instead of a stepwise gradual growth over time, justified by need.

At that November meeting, I got the sense that the Council members were wrestling with the lack of details with respect to who, how many and why additional staff were being hired to create the new organizational charts. Councillor McFadden made reference to “looking for more”. Councillor Reed referred to a “leap of faith”. Councillor McFadden noted while it was not a question of trust, but that it was important to be “transparent and accountable” referring, as an example, to the salaries and benefits for the Office of the CAO going up by more than $400,000 with the variance presumably being related to staffing additions, adding “So what staffing additions? That’s what I want to know?”. Councillor Flowers added, “It’s not about trust so much, but getting the information we need to make a good decision”.

Councillor Nagel continued the request to pull back the curtain from the Organizational Chart black boxes (page 20 of draft budget) asking, “I would like to get a breakdown though at some point of the positions or something”.  In his response to Councillor Nagel asking about any large amount of money not accounted for in the budget, Derricott advised that “we have intentionally left a portion of that money as undefined at this point so that we can grow into that a little bit.” That should be a red flag for Council!

At this point Mayor Genung intervened as if to chide the Councillors for their request for more detailed information, saying “I fear that we are landing on the trust thing, if you say contrary to Administration that you don’t trust them” He explained that it is not the best use of Council’s role to vet or provide oversight with respect to requests for staff by the Administration and cautioned the Council not to go there as it implies a lack of trust. Derricott agreed with the Mayor, saying, “that’s actively what we are trying to prevent”. I would reply that if Council doesn’t have that responsibility for such oversight with respect to expansion of the Administration and the introduction of new positions, then who does?

Councillor Wilson noted that “the level of detail is too general for me to feel that I am realistically informed about the budget”. From his earlier comments, it seems that Mayor Genung would say don’t worry so much about the details and that enquiring of such can be perceived as mistrust of the Administration.

Councillor McFadden noted that there was a lot on leadership positions identified, but would also like a handle on what the boots on the ground positions are looking like.

Councilor Nagel asked a relevant question which he had asked earlier but wasn’t answered in detail, “Is there a large portion of the budget that is sort of in there and we don’t know how it is going to be spent? We think we need it, but we don’t know how we are going to spend it yet?” The answer provided by CAO Derricott is troubling and should be troubling to the entire Council. According to CAO Derricott, “There is currently contemplated about $587,000 in that general revenue account. We know we need that to address staffing capacity issues”, which are not defined. Councilor Nagel summarized, “$500,000 for staffing, but we don’t know staffing yet” and Katherine Van Keimpema responded, “Correct”.

In light of the above discussion and questions raised at the November 15 Council Meeting, I am highly encouraged by Councillor Fedeyko’s take on the budget as expressed at the Council’s budget deliberations that took place on November 25, as reported by Cochrane Now (“Tax increase will strike another blow to struggling families and businesses”), which I hope is shared by the other councillors. In contrast with Mayor Genung, who said he would have no problem standing on main street and defending this budget, equating a ballooned bureaucracy with better services, Councillor Fedeyko expressed strong opposition to the 2022 operational budget and the way it was presented: “Being that this was my fifth budget deliberation and the largest increase of taxes being proposed to residents on the books, I assumed information would be clear, concise, well delivered, and certainly well communicated. I feel that has not been the case…I absolutely believe we are short-staffed in areas and of course, want to fill the desperately needed positions, but I don’t believe layers upon layers of management spells success.”
[The councillors seemed stunned by what Councillor Fedeyko had to say about the budget. Councillor Fedeyko’s entire presentation appears between 1:40:20 to 1:43:38 minutes in the video for the November 25 Council meeting.]

The Cochrane Now article also reported that “A four per cent cost of living adjustment (COLA) is being provided for nonunion management employees, which was labelled a must in the budget presentation”. A ‘must’ while the rest of us struggle under the weight of inflation?

As well, “The total increase in wages and benefits, including COLA, is $747,000 for nonunion management and frontline staff, $284,000 for unionized workers, and $34,000 for town councillors”. That’s simply obscene given, as noted by Cochrane Now, that “Families and small businesses already struggling with the ill effects of the pandemic, economic downturn, and flaring inflation”.

At the November 25 Council budget deliberations Councillor Wilson’s persuasive appeal to Council not to include the Equity & Inclusion position in the budget as it represents “a virus of thought that replicates itself across an organization once installed and is very dangerous”, should be given serious consideration by Council. I would add that such identity politics is an outcome of neo-Marxist critical theory or critical race theory which only serves to emphasize grievances and divide a population. Shockingly, for Councillor Flowers, in return, to accuse Councillor Wilson as representing “white privilege” because of his expressed concerns is the dismissive language of left-wing neo-Marxist critical race theory and should have no place in our Town’s affairs. [Councillor Wilson’s appeal to Council not to approve the Equity & Inclusion Specialist position, appears between 1:31:37 to 1:33:31 minutes in the video for the November 25 Council meeting.]

The big question, however, is how did we arrive at a situation in the space of a year from 2021, an election year, which garnered a decrease in taxes, to a situation in 2022 identified as a critical situation (a “critical juncture” according to Katherine Van Keimpema, Executive Director, Corporate Services) whereby our Administrative staff according to the CAO’s anecdotal ‘A day in the life’ narrative are vastly overworked (“worn down, tired and stressed…scarfing down a cheese burger for lunch because that’s all you have time for”) and barely able to maintain current service levels (“I don’t believe the way we are currently organized that we are providing the best services to the people of Cochrane.”), a ‘critical’ situation that can only be corrected by a substantial 10% property tax increase along with a substantial increase in non-management and management staffing?