“You have heard me say to council a number of times - the finance department is understaffed and this is in my view a direct symptom of the understaffing issue that has taken place there for some time."—Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond.
The Mayor has finally provided his take on the five million dollar budgeting error of a few weeks ago.
As things turn out, the problems are mostly related to staffing issues, as it seems that according to the Mayor staff turnover resulted in the error which saw numbers double counted, leaving the City 5 million dollars off target going into October.
While there was an apparent increase in the staffing levels of the Mayors office over the last year, it would seem that hiring on folks with calculators for the accounting department didn’t quite keep up with demands of the job.
In fact, the Mayor went so far as to almost say I told you so, by recounting a number of times at council that he has suggested that the accounting department was understaffed.
Since the Mayor has brought the topic up, this opens up an opportunity for some of that famous transparency we’ve been promised at City Hall.
Perhaps an evaluation of staffing levels at city hall is required, maybe eliminating jobs in some areas where they may be a little employee heavy and opening up those bean counting positions where they may be required.
While they’re at it, perhaps the city could present some background for the taxpayers and residents as to what the staffing levels in other towns of similar size to ours are at.
It would be interesting to see how each department stacks up compared to other cities, engineering, administration, even the Mayors office, a helpful comparison chart might give the residents of the city a better understanding of where the needs are, or aren’t in some cases.
It might also be helpful to learn why the City has gone through so many Chief Financial Officers in so many years; the turnover in that department does seem rather high. It might be of some benefit to the city’s residents (not to mention the employees) to have it explained why that department has become such a hardship post that people don’t seem to last very long.
The Mayor has finally provided his take on the five million dollar budgeting error of a few weeks ago.
As things turn out, the problems are mostly related to staffing issues, as it seems that according to the Mayor staff turnover resulted in the error which saw numbers double counted, leaving the City 5 million dollars off target going into October.
While there was an apparent increase in the staffing levels of the Mayors office over the last year, it would seem that hiring on folks with calculators for the accounting department didn’t quite keep up with demands of the job.
In fact, the Mayor went so far as to almost say I told you so, by recounting a number of times at council that he has suggested that the accounting department was understaffed.
Since the Mayor has brought the topic up, this opens up an opportunity for some of that famous transparency we’ve been promised at City Hall.
Perhaps an evaluation of staffing levels at city hall is required, maybe eliminating jobs in some areas where they may be a little employee heavy and opening up those bean counting positions where they may be required.
While they’re at it, perhaps the city could present some background for the taxpayers and residents as to what the staffing levels in other towns of similar size to ours are at.
It would be interesting to see how each department stacks up compared to other cities, engineering, administration, even the Mayors office, a helpful comparison chart might give the residents of the city a better understanding of where the needs are, or aren’t in some cases.
It might also be helpful to learn why the City has gone through so many Chief Financial Officers in so many years; the turnover in that department does seem rather high. It might be of some benefit to the city’s residents (not to mention the employees) to have it explained why that department has become such a hardship post that people don’t seem to last very long.
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Finally while they've got their pencils out, maybe we can get a bit of an update on what to expect in the future from some revenue streams. The Pulp Mill which once paid over 2 million dollars in taxes when operating, has of late been delivering 100,000 dollars annually while Sun Wave deliberates on its options, next year should bring a change to that dynamic, as per that agreement that they signed with the City, perhaps an update on what we may expect is in order.
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This also seems as good a time as any to let us know when CityWest might return to providing more of a dividend to its main shareholders, the taxpayers of the city. The city owned telecommunications company has provided reduced dividends over the last two years, a valuable bit of money that probably could have be used by City Hall.
The Mayor provided his interpretation of the perils of municipal governance in the Thursday edition of the Daily News, the paper also provides some handy research for Podunkians examining the list of financial shortfalls and missing revenue streams that no doubt have an impact on the city's bottom line .
City blames staff shortages for $5.1m budget oversight
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Mayor provided his interpretation of the perils of municipal governance in the Thursday edition of the Daily News, the paper also provides some handy research for Podunkians examining the list of financial shortfalls and missing revenue streams that no doubt have an impact on the city's bottom line .
City blames staff shortages for $5.1m budget oversight
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Pages one and five
A lack of staff in the city's financial department is being blamed for the duplication of utility revenues counted in the city's 2007 budget.
A lack of staff in the city's financial department is being blamed for the duplication of utility revenues counted in the city's 2007 budget.
Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond said at this week's council meeting that the city has had a lot of staff turnover in that department, including the recent 14-month search for a new chief financial officer and this contributed to the city's $5.1 million budgeting error.
"This is an issue of when the budget was put together, numbers were double counted," said Pond.
"You have heard me say to council a number of times - the finance department is understaffed and this is in my view a direct symptom of the understaffing issue that has taken place there for some time.”
In late September, the city officials confirmed that, in the budget documents released in May, the utility revenues were counted,” said Pond.
“You have heard me say to council a number of times – the finance department is understaffed and this is in my view a direct symptom of the understaffing issue that has taken place there for some time.”
In late September, city officials confirmed that, in the budge documents released in May, the utility revenues were counted twice, resulting in revenues being over-estimated by $5.1 million. Staff then came up with cuts to their department to meet the revenue shortfall and Tuesday night, the city passed an amendment to the five year financial plan.
In the past four years, the city has had four Chief Financial Officers, including Corien Speaker, Lucky Butterworth, Jim Bruce and most recently, Dan Rodin.
“We’ve been looking for a Chief Financial Officer for 14 months and through all that, staff have done the best they could,” said Pond. “When they began to build some strength into the department that’s when the error was caught.”
He stressed there are no missing funds and people should have confidence going forward because they have retained a CFO.
“We now have the staff in that department going forward and it was our own staff who caught the error at the first opportunity, the first budget review we typically do,” said Coun. Sheila Gordon-Payne.
Dan Rodin, the city’s new chief financial officer, said the budget has been adjusted to balance the books as required by provincial legislation.
“The major change will be a significant number of capital works projects will have to be diverted until 2008,” he said.
Compounding the $5.1 million shortfall is the fact city’s revenues have decreased by a total of $2 million in the past two years. CityWest will only be giving the city a $1 million divided in 2007, instead of at $2 million dividend. This also occurred in 2006.
Coun. Tony Briglio said CityWest is going through a growth period and the reduced dividend does not reflect on the company’s ability to pay on its growth.
“We are seeing very positive moves from CityWest,” he said.
In addition to adjusting for the loss of $1 million from the CityWest dividend, the city’s revenues will decrease by $11,000 in expected grant money that the city did not receive for its website, $56,000 in overestimated payments in lieu of taxes, and $38,500 in over-estimated tax revenues.
However, there were some positive adjustments to the city’s revenue forecast.
Rodin said staff were able to come to a funding arrangement with Sun Wave Forest Products this year.
The company that currently owns the Watson Island Pulp mill, and has an agreement not to pay taxes, will contribute $100,000 under its funding agreement with the city. (The property used to contribute around $2 million in taxes annually and Sun Wave will have to resume paying taxes again if it does not commence pulp operations by the beginning of 2008.)
The city also received a $96,500 refund from Pacific Blue Cross, $50,000 in tax penalties and an additional $85,000 from its contract with the Alaska Marine Highway System.
On the expenditure side, the city cut its administrative support budget by $210,000, its public works operating (engineering, drafting and support) budget by $253,000, its water and sewer operating fund by $289,000, its fiscal expenditures by $591,000, its carry-over projects from (2006) by $535,000, its transfers to reserves by $1.3 million, its capital purchases by $198,000 and its public works projects by $1.9 million.
Rodin noted the original budget for capital works (water, sewer and street repairs etc,) was $4.1 million.
“That was significantly more than we spent in 2006,” Rodin noted.
Even though the public capital works program has been reduced to $2.2 million in 2007, it’s still above the $1.4 million spent in 2006.
Overall, Rodin described the budget as conservative – with the city expecting small surpluses in each department.
“Normally there is a tendency for people to budget for the worst case scenario, for every little contingency that could happen,” he said.
Hopefully, they will see a $300,000 or $400,000 surplus.
Nor has the city counted any of the 2007 tax revenues it expects to receive from Chances Community Gaming Centre or the Fairview Container Terminal.
“That’s perhaps another little piece of sunshine that will emerge,” said Pond.
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