Wawa Corporate Planning Meeting Discusses The KPMG Report Again
The KPMG Municipal Service Delivery Review was an item on the agenda for the Corporate Planning Meeting held on September 10th, 2013. Absent was Councillors Holly Morrison-Smith and Yvan Besner.
Mayor Nowicki acted as chair, beginning the discussion that Councillor Holly Morrison-Smith had spoken to her about implementing items from this report, her suggestion to be the implementation of all recommendations except the (Municipal) Bus Service and eliminating the IT department.
Mayor Nowicki stated, “What Council needs to decide or begin to do is look at some of the ones we might implement; that will cut costs. After the budgeting process, during our budget deliberations we agreed to remove a significant amount of money from reserves so that we wouldn’t have a tax increase that the public would find difficult.” She continued to explain, “So the fact that we have to take money out of reserves would indicate that we have to cut costs; at least, to the amount that we took out of reserves.”
Council will have to cut 161,000 from this year’s budget in order to begin with a “clean slate”.
The largest savings that was recommended by the KPMG Report was the elimination of the EDC. Mayor Nowicki said that Councillor Holly Morrison-Smith felt that we couldn’t afford any economic development at this stage. Mayor Nowicki continued that discussion by stating that the incoming CAO would have to repatriate the EDC. “In the meantime, we have an agreement with that that states that we have to give them six months notice. If we continue to wait, we are already going into next year (at six months) at this time, and there will be no savings. I am looking into input from council members as to which items we are going to move on in order to save some money.”
Councillor Ron Rody began the discussion “In regards to the KPMG Report, I’m really not prepared to change my positions on the items I’ve stated before. And I think that with just the three of us here tonight, to look at this in isolation, I don’t see where the three of us should be eliminating from this list.”
Mayor Nowicki stated that she would be prepared to eliminate the free tipping coupon with a savings of $18,000, discontinue the maintenance on the Steephill Dam Road with a savings of $40,000 a year. She continued by stating that she was also prepared to look at repatriating economic development.
There was no discussion from Councillor Bill Chiasson.
Mayor Nowicki ended the discussion on the KPMG Report saying “If council isn’t prepared to make any recommendations, then we will have to bring this to the corporate planning meeting in October, and hope that all of council is here.”
Councillors Ron Rody and Bill Chiasson agreed to bring this item back on the agenda for the next Coporate Planning Meeting to be held in October.
From Wawa-News.com
