PelhamToday received the following reader letter concerning the cost of local governance:
Whilst I think James Culic's column was actually 'politically correct', rather than 'incorrect', I certainly don't dispute the message he was sending out. What I do ask is, why just stop with only the police budget?
Niagara Regional Transit was rolled out less than a year ago, as a huge and well-financed, 100 percent tax-funded operation, which could only benefit all of Niagara.
Now, in the very first Regional budget since NRT came into being they are already claiming similar and substantial tax-funded increases are necessary.
Another is water rates, even more never-ending tax increases, and why? Because Niagara Region, and its municipalities, continues to build the mounting infrastructure deficit by cutting and deferring capital spending on projects claimed as being essential when first approved.
And yet the biggest 'ever-increasing budget' in Niagara Region and its 12 municipalities is never even mentioned or itemized. That is the ever-growing costs of our growing armies of bureaucrats, at Regional and municipal level, the ones who actually produce all the reports and recommendations that councils will one day approve.
So why not ask our politicians, who continue to claim they only wish to 'invest' our taxes in order to serve us best, to tell the electorate and taxpayers just how much these 'investments' have cost us, before they are even rolled out?
That would be different, that would even be transparent, maybe?
So, how about a huge 'no' to, by far the biggest 'never-ending budget increases' of all, and one that doesn't even appear as any single figure, in any budget deliberation, Regional, nor municipal.
Why the secret, and as the taxpayers are the ones who actually pay for it all, why are they not allowed to know? It should be quite simple for Regional and municipal staff, during budget deliberations, to itemize and collate every single tax dollar spent on Regional and municipal staff, and come up with a similar figure to the NRP’s budget figure. What could be more open than that?
Andrew Watts
Wainfleet
