“A Strong Mayor’s Budget Bus”.

The process of building a budget package is like travelling a bus route. The bus stop, where the bus is presently parked, and waiting for passengers to hopefully get on board, has a ‘Route Schedule’ sign which reads, “Budget Bus Stop – January 29^th”.  This bus stop is named as a date.

Along the full-length side of the bus, in big, bold, beautiful, colourful, sweeping letters, are the words, “Strong Mayor’s Budget Bus”.

This particular bus has had a relatively short journey so far that the tax payers, looking on, were unaware of. The route schedule sign board had listed the names of the previous stops it had already made. The schedule board read, “June – councillors and Department heads”. The next stop said “July – Departments draft budgets”. Then came “September – Mayor hired KPMG”. Then “October – detailed budget development, and, in small letters, community input”.

After scanning the schedule board, several tax payers looking on turned to each other and asked, “I don’t remember being at that community input stop.”

The next stop was called “November – Collaborative review by staff, Mayor and KPMG”. The tax payers looked again at each other and asked each other, “Did you hear anything about that? Nope was the common reply going around. The next stop was “January – Strong Mayor tabled the budget.”

When the tax payers turned around and peared inside the parked bus, they saw the mayor sitting alone in the driver’s seat. It was, after all, her bus. They heared her calling out to get on board at this stop and take a ride with her on her big, beautiful bus.

She told them that all they had to do was agree to pay to ride. She said, “A ticket to ride this year is only 9.7% more than it cost you last year. It’s a great deal, the best I can offer at this time. This bus cost a lot of time and money to design and build for you, and you have to pay to ride.

Well now, the property tax payers weren’t so sure. They needed to verify how she came up with her prices. They looked at the price sticker posted in the front window. It listed 3 special features of the bus – Operating, Capital, Reserves – and the total price to buy it was $31,699,081.

Standing tall and looking in the side windows, several folks counted 44 seats inside. Someone asked the driver, the strong mayor driver, “How and why did you choose these 44 seats?”

She relied, “I didn’t. My design engineers did.”

“Who are your design engineers?” a voice called out.

“I asked a highly skilled group of department heads acting under the direction of our CAO, and specialists from a design group called KPMG consultants.”

“I knew that!” said one tax payer, who by coincidence was also a ward councillor.

One of his ward residents said, “Let’s take a closer look at this “Strong Mayor’s Budget Bus”. Let’s check out all its parts. See if it all makes sense and all adds up to give us a balanced ride.”

“Great idea. While it’s stopped here, let’s check all the seats inside. Look closely at the wheels. I see a couple of big tanks underneath. I’ll check it out,” one said.

The tax payers spread out and started looking much closer at how this bus was designed and built.

A group went around to the driver’s side and looked at the double wheels. They seemed to be vibrating. A lady looked at the outside tire, which had a big smile painted on it, with a label that she read aloud, “Operating expenditures”, and a number – “$18,156,686”.

A brave soul crawled under the bus and looked at the inside tire. It was shaking violently. It had a scowl painted on it, and a label that read, “Operating expenditures”, and a different number – “$18,940,813”.

“That’s $784,127 more than the smiling outside tire says!” he mumbled to himself.

To his shock, he heard the inside tire exclaim, “That’s why I’m shaking. I actually have to carry a bigger load than my outside tire says, and I don’t have enough air in me to do the job!”

The brave soul promised, “I’ll ask the strong mayor bus driver why there’s such a difference in amounts!”

“Good luck with that,” the tire commented.

The inquisitive fellow went back around to the passengers’ side where another group had huddled around the double rear tires on the passengers’ side. They appeared to be compressed, slightly flat, apparently from a large load inside that was placed over the tires. These 2 tires were also vibrating.

An older man noticed that the outside tire had a smile painted on it, and a label that read, “Capital expenditures”, and a number – “$12,042,395. The man who had just returned from peering at the inside tire on the driver’s side, said to another young guy, “Scoot in under the bus and check out what it says on the inside tire.”

“Really?”, the young guy questioned.

“Yah. Check it out. We may get another surprise.”

The young guy crawled in under the bus, squirmed around to look at the inside tire, and called out, “This tire is shaking violently. There’s a grimace painted on it, and there’s a label that reads, “Capital expenditures” and it has a number – “$14,218,435.”

“That’s $2,176,040 more than the outside tire reads,” the older man replied.

The young guy called out, “Holy smoke. This tire just talked to me. It said, “That’s why I’m shaking. I have to carry a bigger load than my outside tire says, and I don’t have enough air in me to do the job!”

The tax payers were now gathered together and the consensus was they needed to check out what the seats inside were all about. They sent in 4 tax payers to verify what was up.

One stood at the front and scanned the aisle of seats. A quick count proved that there were, in fact, 44 seats on the bus.

As they passed the strong mayor driver, she said, “These seats will take you to all the new projects’ sites that we plan to undertake this year. You’ll be able to take a ride on the bus to see how we have kept some things the same, as well as all the new improvements that you will realize only after this bus reaches my chosen destination. It’s quite an exciting ride you’ll be able to take.”

A guy mumbled under his breath, “At this rate, we won’t be going to undertake 44 projects, we’ll be going to the tax payers’ undertakers.”

The 3 other tax payers held their counsel and proceeded slowly down the aisle, reading the labels on each seat. They read them aloud as they went. “Arboretum – $25,000.”, “Hogweed – $10,000.”, “Maintenance tractor – $20,000.”, “Picnic Tables – $10,000”, “UV film on Castle windows – $12,000.”, “Fire extinguisher trainer prop – $21,000.”

“What the heck is a fire extinguisher trainer prop? What’s that all about?”

“Here’s one labeled, “Infrastructure services – and there’s no price on it. How can they do a budget if they don’t tell us what the price is. Looks like someone slipped up maybe?”, she commented.

They continued down the aisle, reading as they went. “Apparatus tablet – $15,000.”, “Sidewalk restoration – $50,000.”. When they got closer to the rear, over the passenger side wheels was a seat that read, “Aerial ladder fire truck – $2,600,000.”

“A new fire truck? Totally paid for in one year? Really? Didn’t we do that with the recreation complex? It’s no wonder this bus is leaning to one side. There’s a $2 million difference in air pressure in the inside tire. This needs to be corrected!” the 4 tax payers exclaimed.

The 4 got off the bus and were met by the fellow who had crawled under the bus to check out the pair of steel tanks under the bus. The fellow reported, “I crawled under to check out the 2 tanks and pipelines. They’re for water and wastewater. One says, “Expenditures – $8,017,935. The other reads, “Revenues – $8,017,934.”

“What?” the old man questioned. “There’s a buck missing? They can’t even get their numbers typed up to match? Within $1? This must have been a rush job. Somebody’s been pushing these designers and builders to deliver this bus in too short a time. There seems to have been too much haste to design and build it. This bus is not accurately and structurally sound!”

“I’m not paying to get on this bus.” stated one tax payer.

“I’m not paying to get on either, until they pull this bus off the road and get it designed and built properly!” declared another emphatically.

A chant of, “Fix this bus! Fix this bus!” was heard throughout the bus stop area.

The strong mayor bus driver declared, to the assembled tax payers and their councillors, from her elevated bus seat, “This bus has to be on its way. We have a published schedule to keep to. We will maintain our present direction. We will move with dispatch across the bridge ahead, to our next stop at station, “February 9^th”.

The tax payers looked up the road ahead and noticed, nearby, a single lane bridge across a very deep chasm. The sign on the bridge read, “One way only! No turning back!” The chasm’s name read, “February 1^st”.

“Hey. Isn’t “February 1^st” supposed to be the name for a bus stop?”

The strong mayor replied, “Absolutely not! February 1^st is not a bus stop. This bus, the way I have had it designed and built, does not stop in the middle of the bridge over the chasm. Once I drive past this January 29^th bus stop, and cross that bridge, there will be no turning back to change buses. Even if I have to drive it alone.

If I don’t like your suggestions, if you don’t convince your councillors to all agree and make me change my positon, then this bus will pass over the bridge the way it is, and you’ll all have to pay for your bus tickets I send out. And, they will be the amount I finally decide they will be.”

The tax payers were not impressed. They huddled and consulted. They made suggestions for changes and improvements to the bus’s design and structure. They called their councillors over to meet with them beside the bus, and told them what they wanted them to do cooperatively. This is what they were told.

“This bus cannot leave this bus stop the way it is designed and built. It must be changed. We have too many changes that are needed, to get them all fixed at this stop. To get them all amended and corrected, before the bus crosses the ‘no-turning-back’ bridge of February 1^st, is not possible. Meeting again at the next February 9th bus stop will make no difference. It will be worse. It will be too late to turn back. She can still over-rule you, divide you apart, and get her own way eventually.

This strong mayor’s budget bus will not be changed, amended in design and structure enough by then. We need more time. And we need it now.”

“One of the councillors asked, “How are we going to get more time? How are we going to do that?”

The answer was, “We don’t let this bus cross that January 29^th chasm bridge in this condition. We need to get this bus off the road. We need to get the strong mayor off that single driver’s seat, to agree to share her power, and to do the right thing, the democratic process without a veto. She needs to demonstrate leadership that respects the wishes of our councillors and property tax paying bus riders.”

“How do we do that?” was again the question.

The answer was, “The councillors have to require a private meeting with her. She can bring her designers and advisers along and they need to have a serious talk together.”

“What do the councillors need to tell her?”

“First, they need to remind her that her job is time limited. We tax payers can soon choose someone who does not need to be an artificially ‘strong mayor’ to provide democratic leadership.

Then they must tell her that she will need to agree to share power. The name on the side of the bus must be changed from, “Strong Mayor’s Budget Bus”, to “Council’s Budget Bus”.

It must be done before February 1^st, RIGHT NOW, before it leaves this January 29^th bus stop. Once it passes over the February 1st chasm, then it’s too late and this rickety, decrepit bus is past the bridge of no return.

If she agrees to take this bus off the road, and park it back in the Township’s repair yard, then everyone can cooperatively make repairs to this bus. Everyone could be consulted and work together as a team. The CAO’s departments’ advisers, the KPMG design and structural engineers will have time to contribute revisions and add improvements. KPMG can consider more data such as a 10-year capital forecast which should be ready very soon, and an overview consult about asset management plans that impact on this bus’s design and structure.”

“What about the ‘sunk-cost effect cognitive bias ’?  a college economics major asked the assembled group.

“The sunk-cost what effect?” someone asked.

The economics major replied, “The sunk-cost effect, a cognitive bias, refers to the tendency for people to escalate their commitment to a course of action in which they have made substantial prior investments of time, money, political capital, personal credibility, self-concept or other resources.

When faced with high sunk-cost commitments, people become overly committed to a certain pattern of actions even if the results are now known to be quite poor. They tend to continue to ‘throw good money after bad’, so to speak, and the situation continues to escalate.

If people behaved rationally, they would make choices based on the cognitive marginal costs and benefits of their choices rather than on pride or ego or some other forces.”

“So, what does that have to do with where we are right now, here at the January 29^th bus stop?”

“She’s got a lot of personal pride and political capital invested in her choices. She’s going to be very resistant to sharing her new powers. She apparently likes the newly-found deference shown to her by others, and that, she proably believes, is a result of holding on to her strong powers and will not easily give them up.” The economics major opined.

“Well, if she doesn’t get over herself, then, as the saying goes, ‘Pride goeth before the fall!” observed a pastor in the group.

“What about that bridge ahead over the February 1^st chasm?” a pessimist inquired.

“That’s easy. The bus standards legislation says that if there is no bus on the road, no bus going over the February 1^st chasm of no return, then that bridge no longer can be crossed by this bus.

If this bus is not on the road, then the bus no longer exists. Therefore, there is no February 1^st bridge that needs to be crossed. The bus standards legislation says that if there is not a Strong Mayor’s bus on the road as of February 1^st, then the bus has to have a name painted on its side saying, “Council’s Budget Bus”. Then everyone can work together to get this bus fixed, and on a different road where there is no sign saying, ‘February 1^st chasm’.”

“That sounds too easy. All she has to do is agree to share power and to take this bus off the road,” an astute young student standing with her tax payer parents commented.

“Yes. It sounds easy. It’s legal. It’s creative. It’s not usual, but it can work for us. However, have you ever seen 5 councillors agree on anything and work together, even if it’s easy and legal? Have you ever seen a politician in the enchanting position of newly acquired power willingly give it up, even if it would demonstrate an old-fashioned, cooperative, consultative type of leadership, applied in a new situation?” a cynical observer commented.

“Well, I’m not getting onto this bus and tour the 44 new sites the way she has put it all together for us to see. I’m not going to be a happy resident when it comes to paying property taxes for something I haven’t been listened to about,” said a woman with a large mortgage and 3 kids in hockey, softball, swimming, and….

An irascible, crotchety, bald-headed man said, “I’ve been paying property taxes in Waterloo Region since 1977. I was paying property taxes in Wilmot all through the 80’s. 48 years later and I’m still paying property taxes today. I’ve had mortgage payments at 10.5%. My brother-in-law had to pay 19% for a term renewal. Raising a family over the years has been hard, sacrificing fun stuff to pay for the basics – like property taxes. Tax payers today have it no harder or easier than it ever has been.”

An elderly fellow beside him rubbed his chin, pondered the ground a moment, looked around, and summed it all up. He said softly, but with firmness in his tone, “Maybe what any Township needs – is leadership with less hubris, and more humility?”