HawthorneVillager.com

A month ago, Milton council approved a 2016 budget with a 5% tax increase. There was no discussion of a 2015 surplus.

Now, staff report a 2015 surplus of $1.5 million and suggest where to use these extra tax dollars. Surprise!

" The preliminary unaudited 2015 financial position of the Town results in an estimated surplus of $1,477,590 ..."
http://www.milton.ca/MeetingDocuments/C ... ntries.pdf

A variance of only 1.4% in our favor seems acceptable.
Seemingly most spending came in under budget in the majority of categories.
Most impressive is they collected significant property taxes they previously thought uncollectable.
They can spend the whole she-bang on grass seed and water and I'd be happy. Milton needs a $1.4MM facelift minimally.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

WOW

It would have cost almost NOTHING to put the weed maintenance budget item back in. I can't recall, what was it, around 150k?
That gets voted down.
Now you end up with a surplus of 10 times that (which I do appreciate), but then you call the shots on what to do with it? Hey, how about the "turf maintenance program" and the other budget items that made it right to the end of the talks before getting slashed at the last minute? Wouldn't that be the most democratic (and logical) thing to do?

This is a neat way to provide for spending over and above the budget while avoiding public scrutiny:
- build a budget with some padding.
- claim that the prior year surplus can't be estimated before setting the next budget so that it can't be used to reduce a tax increase.
- after the new budget is set, reveal the surplus and tuck the padding along with any achieved efficiencies away in reserve accounts for future incremental off-budget spending.
- changes a 5% tax increase into the equivalent of about 8%.
- rinse and repeat every year until a council ends the game.

If, rather than a surplus, there had been a 2015 deficit of $1.5 million I am confident that an estimate would have been available for 2016 budget discussions so that the deficit could be covered in the next tax increase.

I appreciate your watch on this. Don't get me wrong.
To me a < 2% variance seems ok. Padding is a solid strategy, speaking as a former condo board member, cover ur arse is a strategic move. People are surprisingly apathetic until assessed a special assessment.
I am siding with Fred, just do the things that got cut last time at the final hour and sleep well.
I was pissed at the final cuts last time, and lost respect for my vote.
BTW, what was the snowplow savings this year? What is net impact of garbage tags horseshit?

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

This is the stuff that interests me, totally.
Was the surplus from mainly a few specific items? Where were the worst overages? How does that compare to other similar municipalities?
This analysis is what brings improvement, and an overall better run town.

I'm just going to leave this right here:

_________________

I still noticed an improvement last year over previous despite council's asinine move to cut the funding.

Maybe it was just weather-related. 2014 is still the best weed-free year in Milton's history. Ahh, what a short honeymoon that was.

Oh well - maybe next election year we can do it all over again!

_________________

How many complex things requiring the input and efforts of hundreds of hundreds of people have YOU ever organized where the cost came within 2% of the budget?

I am more than OK with finishing 2% under budget.
Anything under-budget and within 5% is fine by me.

Especially if you can point to 'real' reasons like lack of need for snow clearing or reduced fuel costs to explain them.


What to do with the 'surplus'?
If the reserves are under the recommended amounts, then bank the money.

Those reserves come in handy in future years if and when more snow than usual comes along, etc


However, IF the reserves are topped up, then by all means re-fund those programs that barely missed the cut.

...or here's a radical option: CUT OUR TAXES a little bit

In my opinion most of the posts in this thread are missing the point. Sure the variance in percentage terms (%age of total spend) is small and staff should be complimented on achieving this. The real point is why does it take 3 months to discover this result and why does the Budget process not at the very least attempt to estimate the final position. This would not be acceptable in the private sector nor should it be acceptable in the Public sector!

Martin

It's not unusual for the results of prior year budget reconciliation to be completed in the first quarter of the year following. The timing allows for the year end statement to be audited (which I'm sure is 3rd party), which alone can take 6-8 weeks.

It can't be quick or easy to reconcile $100,000,000 in spending done by thousands of disconnected people.
Any attempt to estimate could be a $1,000,000 faux pas if off by as little as 1%.

_________________
No, no. You know who was right all along? The Mongolians. They knew that you just can't wall yourself off from the outside world. Putting walls up never helps anything. Tearing them down brings us together.
-Randy-South Park

To get a 'final' tally for a year end, they have to wait for a variety of things:
- every employee has do submit all receipts and expense claims
- every supplier has to submit all of their invoices, which are then scrutinized and paid.
- Contracts have to be reviewed, payment hold-backs released, etc
- bad debts have to recognized and written-off
- etc

THEN, once the preliminary numbers are in, someone has to do a variance analysis from each department to ensure the charges are appropriate and all went to the correct pigeon-holes.

THEN, the results had to be scheduled and wait for the next council meeting.

10 weeks after year-end seems about right for all of that.

+1

Staff already prepare a quarterly report of variance between actuals and budget. By budget deliberations in December/January they should be able to provide a pretty accurate estimate of current year surplus/deficit – IF COUNCIL ASKED FOR IT.

The problem is that if council asked to include the surplus in the budget process, some smart councillor may want to use the surplus to reduce a tax increase. That would ruin the scam whereby the town can collect an extra 2 to 3% in taxes most years without affecting the stated tax increase or the town tax rate.

One might think that this over-taxation would show up as a surplus in the reserve accounts. Who can tell, since council doesn't regularly evaluate how much SHOULD be in the reserve accounts.

Again back to my comment about the 2015 expenses being audited. I'm sure they are and that would be done in Q1 of 2016. I don't think the timing is unusual at all.