‘BUDGET BINGO’ FRUSTRATES COUNCIL, SO WHAT’S A BETTER ALTERNATIVE?

“Budget bingo” is what Coun. Michael Walters called city council’s budget debate after a fluke resulted in key affordablehousing efforts landing at the bottom of the list.

It feels like a high-stakes game show. City officials spend years analyzing what should be in or out. Then council comes in, makes a list of pet projects and priorities that are unfunded to reconsider. That’s what they debate as the clock ticks down to Christmas.

In past years, councillors felt funding requests at the bottom of that list got heavier scrutiny as the tax levy climbed.

So this year, the city clerk randomized it.

Yup, you heard that right. Rum luck is now a factor in how Edmonton tackles new affordable-housing initiatives.

Council heads into its eighth day of wrestling with Edmonton’s four-year operating and capital budgets Tuesday.

Land worth $26 million for affordable housing is included in the capital budget, but $4 million annually for extra staff and communications to support the work will be debated as an addition to the operating budget this week.

Few councillors are happy with the process.

Several councillors are downright ticked.

They spend an awful lot of time debating small, incremental changes while the bulk of the budget goes unquestioned.

For example, council debated and approved $470,000 for planning a BMX facility in Glengarry Park. That means, for this $5.2-billion, four-year capital budget, I just watched 13 members of council debate something that’s worth 0.009 per cent of the total.

They pay a team of people to consult stakeholders and neighbourhood residents, then plan for and prioritize Edmonton’s recreational facilities. If they can’t trust that team to make a decision that properly ranks all city priorities, what are they paying them for?

A system of second-guessing administration maybe worked when Edmonton was a small town. But it’s a city now, a big city. Council needs to set priorities, ensure the right staff are in place to act, and get out of the weeds.

A couple of factors made this budget particularly bad.

First, money is tight. The economic downturn and lobbying from the business community led council to tell administration its priority should be reducing the tax increase. It specifically told officials not to include new council priorities if that would increase taxes.

That’s why the unfunded list includes preparing for climate change-related disasters, ensuring Edmonton is poised to take advantage of new affordable housing dollars, all regular roadwidening projects and diversification of the regional economy.

Council was hoping for room in the base budget for new priorities but it’s difficult to cut existing services. The full-scale program review it ordered after the last budget got off to a slow start and is being done behind closed doors, which won’t help build community support for big moves.

A NEW WAY TO BUDGET

Walters said he’ll propose a new way of budgeting when this year’s grind is over. Called “prioritybased budgeting,” it would get administration to publicly outline every type of activity the city does and how much it costs. Those get ranked against council priorities.

In theory, that makes it easier for council to give high-level direction on where to pull back and where to spend.

Mayor Don Iveson said it might help shift this council’s culture, which he describes as “very command and control.” The new approach would push responsibility back to administration to make and defend tough choices. It would require council to back those choices when they do.

Priority-based budgeting was recommended by the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce and is similar to what Coun. Mike Nickel has been arguing for — a better approach to setting priorities, then holding administration accountable with public targets. That’s how the boards of well-run corporations function.

This isn’t going to be easy. It means council can’t score political points by criticizing administration. It will also have to stop looking for quick wins.

Glengarry Park, Riverbend Library and the 118 Avenue/101 Street traffic circle all got planning dollars after passionate budget pleas from the ward councillors last week.

But that’s not a win. It’s a condemnation of the process.

Every time a councillor puts forward a one-off project like that, he or she is really saying administration doesn’t know how to prioritize and I do. Well, maybe that’s true — then work on helping the city better identify needs.

Edmonton is facing a time of change.

It can’t rely on the oilpatch and provincial government jobs to keep adding extra funds to the budget. Without a booming oil sector, it’s going to have a tough time competing as a northern and fairly isolated city.

Let’s deal with all of this now and avoid a crisis.