Nanaimo-Info-blog: Nanaimo Taxpayers Being Nickeled & Dimed?

Another few hundred thousand tax dollars ….

It seems like only yesterday that members of this council were making grand promises about controlling city hall spending, lowering taxes and getting a core services review complete to help get a handle on Nanaimo taxes. Remember?? 

Well, to my knowledge a core review is still something we are ‘going’ to do and reducing taxes is something we are ‘trying’ to do but if you were to ask how they are doing so far, I doubt positive responses would come from too many corners.

From where I sit, this council has not reduced city hall spending by one thin dime, and in fact have actually managed to increase spending by many thin dimes, a couple of examples are coming up at Monday’s council meeting.

$230,000 – Strategic Plan and Citizen Survey

As part of the report to Council regards the 2016 – 2020 Financial plan there is $200,000 identified as being the cost of an update or new corporate strategic plan and $30,000 for a citizen service/program survey.

Seems like only yesterday we spent thousands on the current strategic plan and about $15,000 combined on a survey conducted by Ipsos Reid some time ago, and the recent survey conducted by the city.

The cynic might be forgiven for concluding that the shelf where unused studies are kept has a few empty spaces that need filling.

In spite of the current strategic plan, it appears to this humble council-watcher that the document is simply used to justify spending tax dollars on anything from soup to nuts.

And those survey’s the city has done, will most certainly only provide four options rather than offering five options including a neutral response, thus insuring the survey will be slanted to a positive response.

You can rest assured, that the strategic plan and survey will provide city hall all the ‘proof of tax payer support’ needed to continue to find creative ways of spending more of your tax dollars.

,#Taxes