Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Tofino Budget Document

https://tofino.civicweb.net/document/49982

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

$17,500.00 Records Management Needs Assessment & Strat Plan
$71,866.00 Temporary Tech Position Records Management

How to Manage Records 101
click open to Open file
click send to Send file
click save to Save file
click delete to Delete file
click search to Search file
click here to hire another consultant

Anonymous said...

This job ranks very highly in importance. Second only to the Festival Co-ordinator.

Anonymous said...

None of the above will address the issues the residents or wanna be residents have with living with tourists. It is no wonder everyone is turning their places into short term vacation rentals so they can get the hell out of this place. All this budget means is higher taxes. This place is nuts and it won't be long before the town hits the wall with too many visitors and not enough water or employees to serve them.

This says it all from the linked to strategic plan: W:1)Resident retention is a challenge,yet some turnover/loss is necessary.

They have no idea how much this town is being gutted by their current ignore-the-residents policies.

It could not possibly happen that the existing office staff could spend a fraction of their work days doing record keeping? Oh of course that problem could be simply solved by triple deletion. There, no need of a records tech.

Anonymous said...

12:03 could you be more specific? It is a huge and detailed document that could use some translation for us ordinary folk to understand. Anyone out there up to the task, especially decrypting the details regarding tax increases?

Anonymous said...

Simple math.
You don't need to read the documents.
If you hire more staff, the bill for their employment has to be paid.
The taxpayers pay for the staff through taxes. If there isn't a tax increase coming as a result of hiring new staff, then somewhere else was cut to make up the difference. Either way the residents lose.

More taxes or less services.

We already pay enough in taxes and the future sewer system tax levees and the bills for water system expansion costs because of all the tourism use have not yet hit the proverbial tax fan.
The residents are ignored because of the lobbying of businesses in this town.

Someone told me that when the new water rates were being discussed by council there were no residents at the meeting but lots of resorts.
Residents got screwed again It isn't the residential usage that is putting a demand on the system and the resorts get their water for cheaper rates.

Well guess what the resorts didn't like paying even that much for their water so I heard a bunch of water wells went in around this town so that they can do all their laundry and irrigation on the cheap and not pay for water and sewer on that water use.

So, guess what? The town will not be receiving the revenue they forecast from water use the resorts cut back on so the response will be higher rates for residents and other users next year. Just watch it happen.

So add in the hiring of unneeded staff and your taxes will be going up.

Council should tell the existing staff to be responsible for record keeping and if the staff don't like the work load they can quit.

How much for the temporary records technician? $66,286 for two years, 2016 and 2017, plus $22,000 for file management in 2017, and $24,000 in 2018, and a further $20,000 in 2019. ALL PAID FOR BY TAXATION.

That is a job worth applying for and I bet it will be extended because all the 'work' was not completed....

Anonymous said...

"Council should tell the existing staff to be responsible for record keeping and if the staff don't like the work load they can quit."

What!!! C'mon, these poor people only get paid a pittance, work under a terrible stress load, in inhuman conditions, and they don't have a cushy benefit package. It's not fair to pile even more workload on their already overwhelmed plates.

It's only fair that pot scrubbing dishwashers, guys who rip the guts out of fish at the plants, and girls who clean toilets at the resorts (y'know, the "good" jobs) should shell out a bit more in taxes to support these invaluable "public servants".

Lazy, entitled, self righteous, privledged, overpaid, underworked, spoiled, Grrrrrrrrrrr.

You see on TV news stories of how those American cops circle the wagons and spill out their rehearsed stories, in order to protect their buddies who get caught using the authority of their jobs inappropriately, in order to keep the feeding at the trough as lucrative as possible. They stretch the truth, avoid answering direct questions, conveniently forget, hide facts in mounds of irrelevant data, mislead, and avoid telling the simple truth. Excuses abound. Accountability don't exist.
They learned all this from watching B.C. municipal government.
Government to serve the people? No! It's people to serve the government.
Disgusting.
Just wrong.
And they'll get away with it. The boss doesn't want to lose the popularity contest, or miss a photo opportunity.
No f'ing wonder people give up and get out of town.
Corruption. It's within the law, but it's still corruption.
And it stinks.

Anonymous said...

I'm really starting to wonder what on earth the existing management and employees at the District Office ARE DOING ALL YEAR ROUND, when more and more tasks are contracted out to consultants and even record keeping now "needs" a special extra position. Stop wasting our tax money on an elaborate, over inflated administration that looks after LESS THAN 2000 CITIZEN!!!! Nowadays so many tasks are computerized and, for example, nobody has to type out every utility or tax bill anymore, which should free up enough time for record keeping!
The working people of Tofino are not getting constant pay increases to keep up with escalating expenses for taxes, utilities, etc. etc.
Who is going to pay your salaries and who is going to do the dirty work in town once living in Tofino is simply unaffordable for most people.
After living here for many years we are forced to leave. Let the tourists look after this town.

Anonymous said...

Comfortable socialism for the municipally employed....rugged individualism for the rest of us taxpayers. "four legs good, two legs better"

Anonymous said...

The Village needs to manage their money consistent with the principles of their constituents. If records management is a priority then instead of increasing taxes they need to cut another project. As an example why are we spending 20K on a climate change analysis - seems that there wont be much value in a 20K evaluation when there are global experts doing the same. What about the equipment reserve, why are we buying so many expensive vehicles, seems like PW has a huge fleet. There's the beach bus that seems to ride around almost empty, yes its funded by RMI and gas tax but maybe some of that money can be redirected to bylaw enforcement (most of our issues are summer tourists) and stop paying for that beach bus. How hard has staff and council evaluated programs that can be cut and other cost savings? Then council wonders why residents are switching long term rentals to VR's - so we can have a reasonable standard of living and pay our taxes.

Ralph Tieleman said...

Will try to post more stuff soon

Anonymous said...

$20,000.00 for "climate change analysis"??? Really?? Whose idea was this? Who approved it? Where's the money coming from?
Where/Who is the money being paid to?
Why does the district of Tofino need this?

Anonymous said...

Especially why $20,000 for a climate change analysis when the whole climate change AGW story is BS if you know the earth's geological history.

It is just a way to cost you, the taxpaying citizen money while someone gets to siphon those tax dollars away for themselves.
Don't hear much from Al Gore any more do you. He's sitting pretty living on some of the proceeds of the carbon trading system he set up.

So yeah who is going to be receiving the money for that and the records keeping? Bet they turn into full time on the payroll employment positions that never end.

I thought the council we elected had more brains.

Anonymous said...

You don't have to go far to find the Climate change item - second page under planning. The moneys coming from 'taxation' - its not because I don't believe in climate change, I do. No impact studies or the shell game of carbon trading will stop it. So what other projects do we think are a waste of taxpayers money, within reason and acknowledging some things have to be done, even if we don't like them - I would suggest Records Mgmt falls into this bucket.

Anonymous said...

Tell me one thing...... just ONE thing..... that council hopes to learn about climate change, that we don't already know. This is simply a total waste of time, effort, and money. Climate change is real, it's happening now, and other than reducing our own carbon footprint as much as possible, there's nothing we can do about it. We don't need a $20,000.00 "analysis" to tell us this. We already know it. Corruption---Supply an easy "bonus" for someone's friends to supply a report that no one needs.

Anonymous said...

I have to wonder if the spending of $20,000.00 on global warming by a small speck of a community is really about trying to accomplish anything of substance. Isn't it all about the optics, appearing to do the "right " thing. It's all ceremony and drama,\. Council can spend the money and we feel the relief from the white man's burden of "privilege". Aren't we all "born sinners". A few minutes in the confessional, a Hail Mary or two and we can be seen as doing the right thing. That's better. Now keep those tourists flying and driving around the world, bring your money and spend it here.

Or do they really believe. My oh my, do they actually think they are going to accomplish something....It's worse than I thought...

Anonymous said...

Tofino has just lost it. Anyone wanting to live her is pretentious, condescending and rich beyond their means. Good bye lovely community, good bye neighbours that live with bylaw infractions, good bye... And welcome stupid expenditures that increase property taxes, no gym access, climate change analysis, and no public input but more expenditures on stupid consultants that don't give a crap about "community". We are a metropolis now, thanks Council.

Anonymous said...

Look at all the good, contributing families we have lost, many to Ucluelet, some to Port Alberni, others further away. Look at our older generation forced to go somewhere where there are services for them. What is left? Sad, we had the chance to direct and guide where we were going but council(s) of the day seem to act a lot on self interest and that of their friends. Thicke thinks she owns Tonquin Beach, McMaster feels the same about Chesterman, Baert about Main St, Osborne diving for any media opportunity... And on. And that's just the current council... How to stop this out of control spiral? When did we stop putting community before tourists?

Anonymous said...

People can bleat on, and on, but the council does not hear. They are on their enviro mission and can see nothing else. When it comes to the towns immediate problems they can best be described as "Deniers". Head in the sand...