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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Council needs to scrutinize carry-over items at budgeting time

Former Nanaimo mayor offers advice to city’s new council
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Nanaimo City Hall. (News Bulletin file photo)

To the editor,

Whether good, bad, or indifferent, once an item or program has been added to a budget it generally is locked in.

Rarely scrutinized, monitored, reviewed, or reconsidered, budget items are usually automatically adopted annually without any questions as to its benefit or need. Budgets seem to be add on, never subtracted. So bad, corrupt, ignorant items continue to accumulate year after year.

Memories are short and decision-makers are busy trying to get their new spending priorities adopted. They gloss over what’s gone before. Assuming that it ‘must be there for a reason’ and it all goes on to be adopted in the current budget.

Nanaimo taxpayers have been forced by provincial legislation to wrongly pay millions for the damage done to city roads and services by installation utility lines. Hundreds of permissive tax exemptions are passed, without question, benefiting the worthy and unworthy alike. Their tax burden all gets passed on to you. Grants are given to groups who have no financial need. Whole sections of some departments are overstaffed and overpaid.

Councillors come and go, never questioning such matters. Let us hope that our new city council has someone who will ask the tough questions that need to be asked to cut out budget waste and, at long last, save taxes.

With current city spending closing in on $200 million, you can be certain significant unnecessary, wasteful, bad spending of your money is occurring. Anyone who denies wasteful spending is wilfully blind.

Gary Korpan, Nanaimo

READ ALSO: Nanaimo city council gives three readings to 2022 budget


The views and opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the writer and do not reflect the views of Black Press Media or the Nanaimo News Bulletin.

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