The BC Legislature is back in session and went right to work debating something near and dear to our hearts—the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG). This is the independent office of the Legislature which will have the power to look into questionable spending at city halls across BC, make recommendations, illustrate best and worst practices, and basically give property taxpayers some peace of mind that their dollars are being looked after properly.

Naturally (likely because the government thought of it first), the opposition NDP hate the idea. And their reasoning shows how out of touch these MLAs are with the growing frustration over property taxes.

Harry Lali went first on Tuesday morning: “When the local auditor general says, ‘I've got an investigation going on here, and I need all this information,’ small communities... I can just think of communities like Lytton and Lillooet and other small communities across the province — Clinton, etc. The added costs that they're going to be burdened with on top of whatever audits that they do themselves — it's an additional cost. It might not be a big cost for some of the bigger communities, but for little communities it's going to be a huge cost.”

Come on, Harry. We should turn a blind eye to small communities because they’re, well, small? It’s probably easier in a small community to cooperate with an AGLG because there are fewer city staff to gather material from. And property taxpayers deserve accountability no matter how big the city hall they send their money to.

Harry Lali: “When the boardrooms of the corporate world put down their foot and you see a little bit of an earthquake, they shake, the Liberals, and do exactly what they tell them to do — not the people of British Columbia. Remember, this was the Canadian Federation of Independent Business — B.C. Chamber of Commerce types — who wanted this. Nobody at the ground level was asking for it — not the municipal leaders, the regional district leaders.”

Of course municipal leaders didn’t ask for it, Harry! Why would they willingly step forward and volunteer for that kind of scrutiny? And, yes, business groups asked for this—but business pay property tax rates several times higher than residential taxpayers. They are stakeholders in our communities, too.

Norm Macdonald also spoke: “My wife just paid the water and sewer bill. Like most people, in a small town anyway, as we come towards the late spring, I'm going to go in and pay my property taxes. What local politicians will say, and it's true, is that there are very few levels of government where tax is collected in such a direct way. You go in, and you're not getting money back like you can from federal and provincial taxation when it's taken off your cheque. If that's how it's collected, you might get some money back. You write out a cheque, and you go in, and you pay it. In Golden, as with many communities, we actually mainly go into the town hall, and the staff are there collecting it. It's a very direct, hands-on process.”

Well, that’s swell, Norm. But we’re more concerned with how these city halls are spending our dough, not whether we get a firm handshake and “How do you do?” when we drop off the cheque.

Norm: “If council wants to look at an issue, they have the ability to set select committees with members of their own choosing. They can have elected officials if that's what they want to do, but if there's a need for expertise, then councils have the ability to set up a select committee. They can choose people with expertise in any area that they want.”

So the NDP is concerned about the independence of an AGLG, but is fine with a Council appointing its own committee to look over its own books.

Maureen Karagianis: “The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the government declare that they were going to put this position in place was: why? Why at this stage, at 11 years into this government's mandate, are they now suddenly taking this interest, this very keen interest in local government and, in some ways, pointing the finger at local government's ability to manage their own affairs?”

Did she miss the fact there’s a new Premier? Or the fact that more property taxpayers than ever before are expressing concern with how their dollars are spent?

Karagianis: "In reading the bill a little bit further, I noted that it says: "The auditor general may identify and develop and publish or otherwise provide information about recommended practices…." What would that be — "recommended practices"? I've been in local government. Whose recommended practices are those? In fact, are these the local government's own recommended practices? Are these the practices recommended of other local governments, the UBCM?"

That’s the point of having an AGLG. So they can recommend best practices—and how to avoid worst practices. I served in municipal politics for almost six years. I heard about the great things other cities were doing, but never about what DIDN’T work. Yet there`s value to knowing both.

I could go on and on. Needless to say, we at the CTF support the AGLG and think it will provide value for property taxpayers. The NDP doesn`t—and that`s a shame.

By: Jordan Bateman
Posted: February 16, 2012
Topic: British Columbia

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