Arbitration awards to emergency services too expensive: Chamber President

Engaging in a three hour long in-camera session, North Bay City Council went to work on Monday evening, with the difficult task of reining in emergency services costs to a 1.5 percent increase.

Emergency services, for the most part, are the local Police and Fire Departments, with 90 percent of their budget going towards payroll.

Meeting with two senior members of the North Bay Fire Department, arbitration took place behind closed doors, in what ended up being a sealed agreement.

The agreement, very hard to report on as none of the details are allowed to leave the private meeting of council and municipal representatives, was hammered out in order to achieve cost control measures through various means and practices

The quagmire of this situation is that no one has a crystal ball to predict this year's expenditures, which can't be foreseen if the required services extend beyond a normal range in 2014.

Regardless, during the regular portion of City Council, the North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce President Derek Shogren made a request to council on behalf of business's in the city to hold expenditures to a 1.5 percent increase.

Council, listening with little hesitation, was reminded by Shogren that the municipality like it or not, is in competition with area townships and other cities, who decide whether or not to build a home in and for companies wanting to set up their businesses.

The fear is that the already high municipal tax rates that are ballooning, along with increases to emergency services, will make it far more attractive for people who are working in the city to drive 20 minutes to a half hour out of town to their homes, where that municipality won't be so costly to reside in.

As well, everything from retail to manufacturing, could well find that the heightened tax levies in the city of North Bay to be too burdensome to warrant setting up operations.

During the meeting, Shogren pointed to the huge increase in expenditures in emergency services over the past 10 years that, some would argue, are not sustainable and, concerned that they are taking dollars out of other municipal departments would creating a bursting bubble, as pay increases and retirement costs of the burgeoning industry are set to sink the future tax base.

“Certainly, the Chamber has supported both Police and Fire, but the bottom line is that emergency services is the fastest growing expense within a municipality,” Shogren says, adding that 77 to 110 percent higher than the Consumer Price Index is what municipalities have awarded emergency services over the past 10 years.

“Is that sustainable?" Shogren asks.

"Absolutely not," he says.

Shogren, using the analogy of playing ball, says that the 1.5 percent increase to this year's upcoming budget has to stick, as any number which costs more than the rate of inflation is bound to bankrupt some municipalities within the province.

And while acknowledging that the people who are providing the services are, indeed, members of the community, Shogren says that others within the community can only budget so much in the reality of the current economy.

“Obviously, our preference is to have groups come to the table, our friends and colleges, and come to the conclusion that we can't do those three, four percent increases, year after year, without taking away things such as community services and other areas in the budget,” he says.

North Bay Mayor Al McDonald, agreed with Shogren, saying that the Chamber suggested concrete suggestions and, citing that they've 'worked well together,' in the past, was positive that a solution could be found by communicating with all agencies, boards and departments to find efficiencies within the budget.

McDonald says that council is sticking to an aggressive plan of getting the 2014 budget written and passed for December 31stof this year, as discussions and details get ironed out in order to proceed to obtaining the final budget numbers.

“We want begin the new year by bringing in the lowest tax rate increase in 13 years and still be able to provide the level of services that we have been,” says McDonald.

“It's going to take a lot of work, it's a challenge, it's not going to be easy, but we're dedicated and we want to make that happen,” he says.