Ottawa Housing Service 2011 Draft Budget

Ottawa Housing Service 2011 Draft Budget

Jim Watson was the Minister of Housing for Ontario prior to resigning his seat and running for the position of Mayor of Ottawa.

So it is not surprising that the Ottawa Housing Department has been moved from Community and Social Affairs Committee to the Planning Committee. The move doesn’t make any sense and Jim Watson has to be questioned directly about it. There is something sinister going on here.

The 2011 budget calls for 61 FTE  (employees) at an average salary of $102,459.00, up from $76,582.00 in 2005. This is the typical 6 percent annual increase in employment expense experienced in almost every City of Ottawa department since amalgamation. FTE has declined from 67 in 2005 to the current 61 proposed for 2011 in the Ottawa Housing Service Department. So there is clearly something wrong here, but no one wants to talk about it.

The real story! It’s the revenue versus the expenses.

The revenue consists of $146,878,000, all from you, the taxpayer:

 $88 million from the municipal taxpayers of Ottawa

 $29 million from the taxpayers of Ontario

 $29 million from the taxpayers of Canada.

And this is where the money is spent:

2011 Expenses

Manager's Office $577,000 Housing Programs $103,898,000 Family and Emergency Shelter $18,432,000 Affordable Housing $408,000 Domiciliary Housing $9,257,000 Homeless support $7,124,000 National Homeless Initiative $7,352,000 Service Innovation -$170,000
What’s missing from the above numbers? We need to know the breakdown of expenses for each category. I think that is reasonable. If you want to spend  $104 million this year on the Housing Program category,  provide the details please. I am not sure why our municipal tax dollars are being  spent for a National Home Imitative. Councillors  will have to figure this out and report  back to the taxpayer. And that leads to questions about the operations of The  Ottawa Community Housing Corporation, wholly  owned by the City of Ottawa. As noted in my previous writings in 2010, the 2011  Budget for this Corporation must be incorporated into the overall city budget and preferably, within the  Housing Service budget. This our money. The Ottawa Community Housing released its 2011 draft  budget on January 13th, 2011. I wasn’t impressed.  The  Corporation is projecting average manageable costs per  unit at $2,923.00. Manageable costs include administrative and maintenance  salaries and benefits, maintenance overhead, maintenance  materials and services, insurance and bad debts. There are  1044 units. I find the cost per unit extremely high.  and will  research available information on other similar operations  across the Country and report on the results in the coming  weeks. In the meantime, Jim Watson or senior management have  to explain why the Housing Service Department has  moved to the Planning Committee. Bill O’Malley

Ottawa Public Works-Notes.

 

Sometimes, as I am reviewing the data from the operations of the City of Ottawa, my head involuntary moves from side to side. The numbers are that unreasonable.

Take for example numbers from the General Manager’s Office. In 2009, there were 19 authorized FTE (employees) and annual employment expense of $1,490,000 or an average per FTE of $74,421.

For 2011, FTE has decreased to 17 yet employee costs increased to $1,748,000 or $102,823 per FTE. My friends, that is an increase of 38 percent in just 2 years. What is going on?

If we skip over to Traffic, Management and Operational Support,

We find that there has been virtually no change in the number of FTE over the past two years, yet employee expense for 2011 has rocketed by 12.35 percent. Geez!

Bill O’Malley

Transportation Committee-Public Works

Transportation Committee

Public Works

There are 6 sub-departments in this group.

Roads and Traffic Maintenance

Traffic Management and Operational Support

Public Works General Manager’s Office

Transportation Planning

Fleet Services

Parking

We will commence this section with a short overview of the total department.

Overview:

Public Works wants to spend $234 million in 2011. Of this amount, revenue from fees and services and other recoveries will reduce the amount to a net expense of $136 million of your property tax dollars. It will take 1100 employees to run the operation, each employee costing an average of $81,026. Employment costs are projected to increase 10 percent for the years 2010 and 2011. There is no significant increase in employees since 2009. Please take note!

Roads and Traffic Maintenance

This sub-department is projecting Gross Expenses of $131 million, less recoveries and revenues, netting an expense of $116 million. They want to spend $55 million on employee costs, $43 million on material and services and $27 million on fleet services. There are 691 employees each costing the department $80,228 in 2011.

The requested average employee costs are 12 percent higher than 2 years ago (2009).

We should stop here and think about the unreasonable escalation of these expenses. In general, City of Ottawa employee costs have been increasing at an average of 6 percent every year since amalgamation. The employee expense is some 53 percent of the total City of Ottawa budget. That’s translates into an annual increase of some $70 million year. A 2.5 percent property tax increase this year will not cover this expense. There are ways to make up the shortfall, but it won't be from other expense reduction in other categories. It will be from User Fees, fines and penalties, gas tax or other government grants from the provincial and federal governments. It is obvious to all but senior management and councillors that something has to be done to reverse this dangerous trend.

Material costs in this department are “flat”since 2009, but Fleet costs are projected to increase 9 percent for the years 2010 and 2011. How does a sub- department spend $27 million in one year on fleet costs?

Well the answer is that $23 million is attributed to “fleet maintenance costs”. The 2011 costs are 12 percent higher than the close of business of year 2009. Is the rolling stock falling apart or what? Management needs to examine fleet costs soon.

General operations expenses are 11 percent higher than 2009.

These three expenses make up the lion share of the total expenses.

You should not have any difficulty recognizing the problem. You might want to ask your councillor more about the operations in this department.

Bill O’Malley