Regional Budget

[danbrotherston]

Begs the question: has the region gotten so bad that we need a huge police budget? Are others so unimportant that we take away their only outlet for cultural enlightenment? Is it hard for us to help out low-income parents struggling with childcare expenses? I get we need to keep things under budget, but it appears at time that we're penny wise and pound foolish.

I think the police budget should be reallocated to non police social services. However that takes a pretty huge fight to implement due to provincial legislation: the police force proposes a budget and then regional council has to vote it down and go to arbitration...

Yes, council has used this boogieman for years.

But I'd have much more respect for my council if they fought and lost, rather than giving up and voting FOR a budget they claim to disagree with.

But even more, if they really feel the system is problematic, they actually have to vote against the budget in order to change anything, even the system. Right now, they are voting for it, if they went to the province and said "hey, this process doesn't work" the province would say..."why did you vote for it then?"

I suspect the REAL reason is that if they voted against it, even if a majority voted against it, they would lose at arbitration because certain councillors would go and testify FOR an infinitely bloating police budget. We have some hardcore pro-police neocons on council.

Frankly, the police budget is quickly becoming my second biggest source of anger in the budget. The irony is people who pretend to be fiscally conservatives never object..."fiscal conservatism" might as well be a word in new speak.