I was recently directed to a commentary made about campaign fundraising on Werner Patel’s Blog that made it clear that municipal campaign finance rules are not well understood. This has created an environment ripe for abuse by our elected officials.
Council currently has control of the campaign finance bylaw (35M94) which sets the rules of the game for political fundraising in a municipal election campaign.
This has led to the following unethical schemes among members of council in recent memory:
• One Alderman brought forth a notice of motion requesting funding for a charitable organization which council approved and then accepted a campaign donation from the same organization.
• Several candidates accepted campaign donations from institutions or organizations wholly owned by or under the control of Calgary City Council such as ENMAX.
• Several Aldermen made campaign donations to each other and reported those donations as campaign expenses.
• Several Aldermen received tens of thousands of dollars of donations where the donor’s names were not disclosed.
• Candidates are only required to report the net proceeds of a fundraising event, rather than a full disclosure of every donor and expense pertaining to that event.
• At the conclusion of a political campaign and or political career a candidate can keep any surplus from campaign fundraising as personal tax free money.
• After filing campaign returns, there is no independent audit of those returns done by the City Auditor.
There have been minor tweaks meant to hold off the inevitable public outcry, but the new rules council has created for itself are a superficial joke, with a heavy reliance on voluntary compliance.
Council’s half-hearted solutions to this mess include a $5000 limit on campaign contributions, a request that institutions, organizations or agencies “wholly owned by the City of Calgary” not contribute to campaigns for election to Calgary City Council, asking candidates to voluntarily disclose contributions of $100 or more on nomination day and asking candidates to voluntarily agree to donate any surplus to charity.
Looking at the list of financial shenanigans our Aldermen are involved in, I’m confident that any voluntary solution is destined to be ineffective.
What we should be pursuing is a major overhaul including a push to the Province to make donations tax-deductible political contributions subject to audit, as opposed to the current categorization of “personal gifts”. A bold move like this would have significant implications for accountability and transparency of contributions.
The campaign finance rules (bylaw 35M94) can be found here
Another great source of information is an article from FFWD Weekly found here
Meeting Lanny MacDonald in Kandahar Afghanistan.
After the Provincial Government scaled back its infrastructure funding grants to municipalities across the Province, City Council have put their heads together and come up with a list of three ways to “balance” the City’s budget:
1. Raise Taxes
2. Borrow more money
3. Delay the projects
None of these options seem acceptable to me. We need to be taking a serious look at our fourth and fifth options, which our current Aldermen seem oblivious to:
4. Reduce operating expenses:
Any savvy business owner in Calgary will tell you that the way they are coping with the current economic environment is by reducing operating expenses. Businesses all across the board are freezing salaries, laying off workers, and looking to cut costs and save money in areas that our City Council is simply not willing to give up, like entertainment expenses and non essential training. There is plenty of fat in the organization, and what we need are Aldermen with the political will to seek it out and eliminate it.
5. Tap in to the City’s excessive reserve funds:
I have talked about it before, but it is worth mentioning again, that the City has been perpetually over-taxing Calgarians for years and years, hoarding over $861 Million of our tax-dollars in unaccountable “reserve accounts” while raising taxes, crying for additional funding and skimping on essential services that Calgarians demand. The 57 different reserve accounts are currently under review, but council has control of the release of the results of that review, meaning it probably won’t be debated until after the fall election.
It was reported today that most Aldermen have no problem sending us their dry cleaning bills. Over the last year $2,735.19 was claimed by the Aldermen to cover dry cleaning costs for members of council who we pay $96,940.73 (plus perks) per year.
Our initial reaction might be to think that it is not such a big deal. After all, $2,735.19 is not even a drop in the bucket of the City’s massive budget.
But when we put this move into context, it becomes very clear that this is just another blatant act of contempt towards hard-working, tax-paying Calgarians.
Concerned citizens have expressed outrage over the dry cleaning tabs, and sadly (but not surprisingly) some Aldermen tell us we’re wrong and vehemently defend the laundry bills: “It’s part of what goes with the job,” says Ald. Brian Pincott. “We constantly have to be places, we constantly have to look appropriate, act appropriately.” But should we really continue to trust the City to people who can’t even seem to manage their own laundry?
The 14 aldermen collectively spent $11,844.71 on event tickets…$12,670.31 on gifts or door prizes for volunteers or community members…and $2,735.19 for dry cleaning…Taxpayers were still made to cover a new camera [$799], $1,355 in biodegradable pens, and at least $1,095 to a gourmet chocolatier…
– Calgary Herald
Words can hardly describe how much I disagree with any of these personal expenses being billed to the people of this city.
I am interested to know what you think. Post your thoughts to the comments section.
NAME: Brandon
BACKGROUND: B.A. in Media Arts and Digital Technology
What’s important to my City:
Born and raised in Calgary I have seen many changes in this city. It has grown and shaped itself from a little cow town to a bustling technological innovator. Calgary has become a hub for many technological and medical discoveries throughout the years and is continuing to grow and expand in diversity everyday. Over the years Calgary has been branded as many different things, but is mostly recognized as a little country town due to the popularity and world recognition of the Calgary Stampede. It is important to me to see Calgary look less like an oil gobbling sprawl with no coherent plan, and focus more on our recent achievements and vision for the future. This city has massive potential to become a blue print for other cities looking to develop a greener image and with the right leadership could take a giant leap forward.
Why I support Mike Pal:
I believe Mike offers a fresh new vision for Calgary; especially at a time where there has been in a trend of some awful decisions made at the municipal level. Mike will be the one to present fresh ideas and insights into managing the future development of the city. His platform is one I agree with, and his hard working values as a Calgarian display that he provides a mature stance and will represent our vote.
Among the many issues that Calgarians should consider before voting at the upcoming municipal election are two new ones:
1. Stiffing the Taxpayer
First let us look at the proposal for the West Village, which just came out of the blue. It is the Mayor’s latest plan to finance the private sector development of the West side of downtown with tax payers’ money. Remember the East Village where we used Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) to build it? Now we are proposing the same thing for the West.
What most people do not know is that TIF is a great way to ‘stiff’ the taxpayer with long term debt. It works this way – the City finances the development of so called ‘unusable land’ with city debt. Then they will collect higher taxes from the residents of the new area to pay off the debt. The problem is the new residents are not the ones gaining. They will be paying higher taxes long after the developers have made their profits and gone. The question to be asked is: Who are the developers and others who really benefit?
Worse yet, if the project is financed by the City, very little financial disclosure will be available, as is the case with East Village.
2. Prorogation of City Council
City Council – Closed for Business from July until the election in late October.
Second, there has been an outcry of some sort by the media and some political parties that the Harper government is circumventing democracy when it prorogued Parliament.
While the government has still been working, as shown by the response to Haiti and other economic and environmental issues among other things, Calgarians are probably not aware that the Mayor has already postponed any Council meetings from July to the end of the municipal campaign at the end of October. (This decision was supported by 14 out of 15 members of Council.)
What this does is simple; the Mayor controls the City’s agenda while he is campaigning, and neither the Mayor nor the Aldermen who supported this break are accountable to Council or the citizens for any decisions made between July and the municipal election.
Why is nobody crying foul? Does this prorogation not warrant our attention and ire?
Wake up Calgarians. Think hard before voting in October.
____________________
Marcel Latouche is the President and Chief Executive of the Institute for Public Sector Accountability (IPSA) and is a regular contributor to the National Post and the Calgary Herald.
Finance Minister Ted Morton’s Provincial Budget has been announced and it has some interesting financial implications for Calgary.
Overall we will see a $4.7 Billion provincial deficit, which comes as a bit of a surprise to everyone. Despite the record setting spending, Calgary’s share of the Provinces Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) comes up $153 Million (37%) short of previous commitments.
While the Mayor is busy threatening the Province with “legal action”, he and the Finance Committee Chair have left us with our pockets inside out, wondering if we need to postpone projects, or borrow more money and continue to move deeper into debt.
Mayor Dave Bronconnier, forced to accept some financial realities, is ‘unhappy’ with the results of the budget. (CBC)
But what is even more shocking to me is why these cuts are coming as a surprise to City Hall when we have all known for some time now that Provincial finances weren’t quite in order and that revenues from governments all across the whole world are down.
Minister Morton explained that the revenues, which the MSI was premised on, are simply not there, and City Hall was given a heads up that the expected increases wouldn’t be there several months ago. Maybe we just had to see it to believe it.
I think it’s safe to assume that tantrums and tax-payer against tax-payer “legal action” aren’t going to cause a wheelbarrow of money to appear on the steps of City Hall, so if we are going to continue to move forward, what we need to see inside City Hall is a dramatic transition from the current attitude of entitlement and the phony success stories of “doing more with MORE” to a constructive and fiscally responsible attitude of “doing more with LESS.”
In all the financial uncertainty that we deal with every day, we can be sure of one thing – the cuts will not end here. This fall we need to elect Aldermen with the political will and the reformers spirit necessary to fundamentally change the way business is done at City Hall.
Link: Province declines Calgary airport tunnel funding (Calgary Herald)
City Hall’s tradition relying on funding from other levels of government at the 11th hour, combined with an attitude of entitlement has left Aldermen at City Hall caught with their pants on the ground after the Federal and Provincial governments both rejected calls for $100 Million each to fund the airport tunnel.
Other governments are realizing what tax payers and families in Calgary have already figured out, but which City Hall still hasn’t – in economic times like these, we have to exercise fiscal responsibility and restraint in order to control spending and focus on priorities over the nice-to-have.
The Federal and Provincial governments have both taken notice of the non-priority projects this council has spent money on in the past and are not feeling particularly sympathetic:
Ouellette reiterated his argument that Calgary could have used more than a billion dollars in existing provincial grants to Calgary to pay for what is technically a city road.
“They could have used that money for an airport tunnel if it was their highest priority, or even if it wasn’t their highest priority,” the minister said in an interview Thursday.
“But as far as us coming up with a special amount of money just for the airport tunnel which isn’t our responsibility or highway, I would say chances are between slim and nil.”
Again we can see that our biggest problem is not a lack of money but a serious problem with the prioritization of some Aldermen that is seriously misaligned with the priorities of Calgarians and local businesses.
The GST rebates the City received from the Province in 2004 are another perfect example. The unexpected $25 Million cash injection from the Province was immediately spent on a list of flashy non-priority projects including Heritage Park, libraries and a new science center.
Calgary’s snow removal program is under-budgeted nearly every year, and Calgary has one of the worst snow removal programs of all major cities in Canada.
The solution some Aldermen are talking about would see the City provide more service and pass the bill onto the taxpayers accordingly – to the tune of a 9.8% property tax increase.
Link “Better snow removal could be costly, say Calgary aldermen, Changes could hike taxes as much as 9.8%” (Calgary Herald).
Finance Committee Chair, Alderman Gord Lowe said he would like to see “a serious conversation about snow removal, recognizing full well it will affect the mill rate.”
But I don’t think we should be so quick to give up and take it for granted that improving snow removal service in Calgary will cost more.
What we need is to come up with new and innovative ways to deliver services in this City. The problem is the stale culture that exists in City Hall won’t let it happen. Many Aldermen have served the City well over the years, but some of them have simply run out of motivation and new ideas. Alderman Hodges who was first elected in 1983 seems to have given up on the idea of improving services altogether:
“Hodges anticipates increased talk about addressing snow clearing concerns, but he doubts there will be expensive changes proposed as council enters an election year. And, he says, nothing they do will be a panacea.
“You can make some people happy some days, but not everybody all the time,” Hodges said.
“It’s no win.”
I’m interested in hearing from you. Are you satisfied with the City’s snow removal services? Knowing the costs, do you think the City should be the sole provider of snow removal services?
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