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
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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
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