Watching the operations of the major cities in Saskatchewan – more specifically their fiscal performance – feels a lot like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You can see it coming but there seems no capacity to stop it.
In broad terms, local politics tends to attract people with good political antennae but a little less depth in the realm of running an organization with a budget running in the hundreds of millions — and it is starting to show.
Saskatoon, for example, is wrestling with a shortfall for something as basic as snow removal last year and now faces a budgetary gap of more than $50 million, equal to nearly 20 per cent of property taxes. In Regina, the dysfunction includes councilors suing the administration over budget line items.
Those responsible for governance in these communities would do well to get back to operational basics — take care of the roads and what’s under the roads, pick up the garbage and provide protection.
Rainbows and unicorns should be chased only after the basics are handled.
