Exam 612 Final
Introduction
Having been allocated $10 million dollars to support the city services, the expenditure plan objective will achieve an affordable 2013 operating and capital budget. The primary objectives of the budget will ensure the provision of core services to all citizens and bring in line spending with revenue growth and moderate capital financing pressures. The budget will see the spending by the city reduced through savings attained from implementing service efficacy means as well as cost reduction while maintain important services that citizens value (Buxbaum & Sternaman, 2007). The budget will help the city maximize revenue sources. In order to be fully effective, the budget will control the aggregate expenditure to guarantee affordability and consistency with macroeconomic conditions; useful means for attain a resource allocation that reflect expenditure policy priorities; effective public services delivery; and minimize the financial budgetary management costs which will be evident in effective budget execution. The budget will ensure that the services demanded by the city residents are delivered in a sustainable manner in the long run (Costello, 2011). The development priorities for the operating budget will be a public health, transit, fleet and transportation services, social services and employment, children and long term care services, parks and recreation, city planning, governance and internal services, public library, municipal licensing and standards, municipal services, police services, fire services, tax support program, environmental initiatives and economic development, culture and tourism. These budgetary provisions will help ensure continuous improvement to facilitate the provision of effective and efficient services to citizens and business, looking for the best possible combination for quality, efficiency and beneficial effect on the residents.
Budget
The budget will focus on municipal services (38%), emergency services (Police, Fire, and Emergency Medical Services) (19%), administrative services (16%), transit and transportation (10%) and other programs (Shelter Support and Housing, public health, children services, long term care homes and services, and Employment and social services (17%)).
The chart below shows the percentage of expenditure of these services
On a continuous basis, the city services will be delivered in a way which ensures that all the 250,000 residents get good value for the charged property taxes whilst balancing the need for being fiscally responsible as well as ensuring a high living standard and quality of life for the residents. This budget places a lot of emphasis on the services, which address community safety, economic competitiveness, transportation and transit services, and environmental initiatives.
Governances and Internal Operations - $700,000
When it comes to governances services, the budget sets aside funds to ensure good governance and accountability through the various offices. The funds are set aside to establish and build offices such as office of the auditor general, integrity commission office, lobbyist registrar office, Ombudsman office, legal services office, Mayor Office, City Council, City Manager, Chief financial Officer Office, and the City Clerk’s office. Office of the auditor general will assess the city programs, functions, activities of commissions, boards, agencies, divisions, the Mayor office, and that of the members of the council in order to improve the efficacy of governance, control, and risk management processes. The integrity commissioner will be established to offer advice as well as outreach the Council members and adjudicative and local boards and offer opinions requested by the council. The office will also conduct an inquiry into the codes of conduct contravention (Cliché, 2012). The lobbyist registrar will enhance and promote integrity and transparency of the decision-making process of the city government through regulation of lobbyist conduct and lobbying activities.
The Ombudsman office will be established to offer the public with impartial and independent handling of its complaints, as a result escalating confidence in the city government, saving funds via general inquiries and reducing court cases against the City over time. The funds allocated will help the City clerk office go on meeting statutory responsibilities, support the City Council proceedings as well as implementing identified city council priorities. The funds will also help the legal services office represent and defend the city at all tribunals and court levels such as the human rights tribunals, labor relations boards, workplace safety and insurance tribunals. The office will prosecute a wide range of the city provincial statute and by law statute violation, offer City Inspector training, as well as negotiate agreements related to provincial offences. The funds will also help the Mayor Office offer essential support to the executive committees and Mayor for the attainment of their tactical priorities, receive stakeholder and constituent inquiries and ensure the resolutions of issues in time (Sullivan & Sheffrin, 2003). The city council, which represents various wards across the city, will also require funds for the representation and making a decision on behalf of the residents at the city council and committee level.
The City manager’s office will also require funds since it will help in ensuring effective delivery of core services to the residents, change restrictive and costly agreement provisions and attain cost reduction measures. It will help coordinate of a continuous implementation of a service review program and coordinate citywide services with those of the federal government. In addition, it will execute council mandated initiatives on diversity, equity as well as human rights through establishing education and awareness, leadership programs, offering technical advice as well as capacity support to every city division and embedding equity, human rights and diversity lens to all corporate practices, policies and strategies. A facilities management and real estate office will ensure that the city facilities are maintained in line with the set maintenance standards. Moreover, it will ensure that there is an optimal city property portfolio, which meets program requirements through working with other association to leverage the asses in an economically advantageous and productive way. It will also support the businesses, residents as well as the neighborhoods in taking the right action on air quality and climate change by means of providing financial and expertise support. Additionally, it will ensure that there is maintenance of waste diversion through reviewing programs in order to target buildings that have low diversion rate and work with other association to set similar programs.
The fleet services office will offer fleet management for the disposals and acquisitions of equipment and vehicles, training and licensing drivers as well as the city vehicles operators and equipment to facilitate observance of safety standards and managing fuel site operations. Thus, this will be important in minimizing costs and reducing maintenance locations. This office will also offer leadership in advancing environmental objectives related to fleet utilization. The information and technology office will also be important in managing an enterprise-wide IT service desk for offering an important contact point for the city staff to obtain large and varied support for information technology incident resolution and service request. Furthermore, it will deliver eSecurity and software updates through the central networks by means of a large number of computers as well as notebooks, manage the numerous phone lines, servers, wide area network sites and voice mail servers. It will also support the wireless devices, and cell phones used by the city council officials. This office will plan, develop, put into practice, and sustain business solutions for supporting and enhancing service delivery by the established programs. The chief financial officer office will be engaged in managing investments of the 10 million; furthermore, deliver the 2013 recommended operating budget and the capital budget and plan, which outline the financing as well as the cost to deliver city services and the capital infrastructure with the set service level standards, affordability priorities, and targets. Also, this office protect the financial and physical assets through superior risk management and insurance strategies, process claims every year and handle the charges systems which generate a lot of money annually. This office will also review various staff reports, recommendations, as well as notices of motions for financial implications in order to make sure that the council is completely informed before decision-making, offer analysis and recommendations to the senior management. Moreover, it will inform the council and committees on service, operation and capital infrastructure issues, which affect the city financial budgets and performance. The treasurer office process purchase orders, vendor invoices, pension cheques, pay cheques and tax bills.
The $700,000 set for governance and internal services will be important in ensuring that these offices guarantee services are provided to all residents in an efficient, transparent, and effective way.
City Programs
The budget will finance various city programs that enable efficient delivery of services to the residents. For instance, a customer service program that operates on a 24-hour basis every day of the week offers consistent access to non-emergency services for all city residents. The program will complete all contacts at the first contact point and address every customer complaints within the service standards of all interrelated complaints (Watson & Hassett, 2003).
Children Services - $250,000
This program will offer 1,000 licensed child care spaces as well as 10,000 child care fee subsidy spaces through home care and child care agencies. It will administer 20 summer programs; moreover, after and before 12 programs for 200 children.
Court Services
This program will deal with court cases, resulting in more than 10,000 yearly charges processes in line with the provincial legislation and process of all the trials on provincial offences issues, other hearings, as well as fine payments yearly.
Economic Development and Culture - $600,000
This program will support approximately 170 key sector development projects as well as 50 BIAs and other small businesses in the city, which include 100,000 employees, and 10,000 businesses. The program will market and support film production and other income generating businesses. The funds will help in advancing the city livability, opportunity, and prosperity though engagement of partners in the planning and development of cultural and economic resources. They will help with the creation of an environment whereby culture and business thrive and deliver targeted services and programs. The aim will be local revitalization, supporting the economy, and fostering creativity. Supporting the economy will entail investment attraction, cluster/industry development and business expansion, retention and entrepreneurship. Fostering creativity will entail cultural partnerships, funding, events programming, cultural assets, and public art. Furthermore, local revitalization will entail labor force development, creative spaces and hubs development, neighborhood cultural and economic activities. The funds will be used in development of a plan that prioritizes and supports initiatives, which directly address development of the city economy. Increase in the city presence on the international market will be important in attracting investors, which promote cultural and economic growth. This will entail development of ten new investment plans that lead to the major internal markets such as South America, India, Japan, and China using local business teams. It will also entail establishing a baseline for the top of mind alertness in major international markets, target marketing programs and public relation in order to increase the top of mind awareness by 15% for the entire year within the strategic industry clusters as well as with key decision makers and influencers. A baseline for support will be established to host key global events with a target of three new events. The money for economic development will also be used for maintaining and developing the city employment and investment of major economic sectors through anchoring and increasing priority industry sectors and developing strategic novel sectors. The funds will also be used in expanding the sector development efforts in strengthening and developing the creative media sector and other environmental sectors. They will be used to increase the number of key partnerships and investment value leveraged by 30%.
The funds will also be used in implementing green (environment and energy) approach through facilitating commercialization centre and greening efforts. In addition, they will help establish a tourism public relations program with the private sector partnerships to develop visitor services and attract investors. Furthermore, they will help improve mentoring, training and advocacy for the film industry in the city to boost spending by 25% and boost the film locations number by 10% to turn the sector around and develop it. The funds will help the city to be more creative by concentrating on chances for leveraging innovation and creative assets. The funds will also ensure continued support for a museum and Public Arts Program to offer visitors and residents with a convincing reason for attending cultural events and facilities as well as creating opportunities for young people to take part in the creative city program.
The funds will also help to undertake a local revitalization initiative to promote a cultural and economic inclusion, develop plans for entrepreneurship training, youth training, apprenticeship, and mentorship. Besides, it will help improve the safety, quality as well as the attractiveness of the neighborhoods, districts, and mainstreets for grant capital and streetscape improvements. It will help build partnerships with employers in order to advance job opportunities for young people. It will support strengthening business retention and enterprise units in order to sustain the city business investments and register about 1,500 new businesses yearly. Further, it will undertake actions in order to offer and project a receptive can-do environment in the city to attract and retain jobs and investments. Finally, it will help create a more collaborative and responsive environment which promotes investment (Sengupta, 2011).
Emergency Medical Services - $ 400,000
These funds will ensure a 24-hour emergency medical response system from the city to ambulance stations with a fleet of 70 ambulances as well as a staff of 400 paramedics and 80 emergency medical dispatchers. Also, they will ensure the provision of 150,000 emergency vehicle assignment and 10,000 emergency transports.
Long Term Care Homes and Services - $ 250,000
These funds will ensure that the city council provides long-term care services such as convalescent and resident care provided at 5 long-term care homes and offer support to more than 1,000 residents. In addition, they will offer client days of care under the supportive housing services and adult day program for 200 clients. They will also ensure the establishment of a program, which will deliver more than 1,000 meals every week and 20,000 client visits under the nurses and homemakers services to support the aged and offer laundry, housekeeping and meal preparation help. The funds will provide 10,000 bed nights of emergency shelter for homeless people including support, meals and boarding home service bed-nights for adults with various disabilities.
