I agree with your final conclusion, that City Hall doesn’t want to hear from the Citizens on the budget or much of anything else. We need to create a culture change at City Hall - among staff and the politicians - but to do that we need to create a culture change in Ottawa among our Citizens, a recognition that our obligations don’t stop in a representative democracy when we fill out our ballot, that we then need to work with our neighbours to make sure our councillors know what we think and need and we need to pitch in to help get it.
Ottawa once had as many as fifteen advisory committees, filled by volunteers, experts in their fields who had the time in retirement or felt the obligation to give to their community with their experience and expertise. Those committees were a resource to councillors - who, despite how it seems, really don’t know everything - and expanded the horizon of Ottawa’s future. Advisory committees have now been reduced to the five or so that are provincially mandated.
Our City needs to do more to encourage citizen participation, starting with projecting an acceptance of it and following with seeking and funding it.
These are eminently rational suggestions, Neil. Unfortunately, there is not a chance in hell that they will come to be accepted by the powers that be. The whole City culture is against it. In 30 years of dealing with City Hall I believe I've seen it happen once (1x) that staff came forward with options. The City is run by senior staff in cahoots with the Mayor's office. Nobody else has the power to do anything. There are almost no exceptions to this rule.
There is the occasional goof-up, such as proposing a 100% increase in seniors' bus passes. That gets corrected. I wouldn't be surprised if this was put forward so it would get all the attention, leaving no oxigen for other issues.
One comment on the current process, though. Everything you say is correct but the actual budget making process starts as soon as the previous budget is passed. Staff submits ideas to senior management. After triage, and quantification of "pressures," numbers are added up and squeezed into the politically salable overall number which becomes the "Budget Direction."
The other thing to note is that all proposed changes are incremental. At the start of Sutcliffe's term there were supposed to be a series of "program reviews." Like anything else, this has quickly turned into a fake PR exercise -- see https://engage.ottawa.ca/yourideas -- a long way from anything resembling zero-base budgeting.
Councillors who understand the situation and are prepared to do something about it can be counted on one hand. Until that is a majority, and we have a progressive mayor providing leadership (task #1: refresh senior management), nothing will change, I'm afraid.
Couldn't agree with you more Neil. I was one of the co-authors of the Op-Ed piece that referred to you as the "first person" to speak! We are hoping to have a follow-up piece published in the next week or two.
This city needs a serious rethink on how it functions.
Neil,
Thanks for a great piece.
I agree with your final conclusion, that City Hall doesn’t want to hear from the Citizens on the budget or much of anything else. We need to create a culture change at City Hall - among staff and the politicians - but to do that we need to create a culture change in Ottawa among our Citizens, a recognition that our obligations don’t stop in a representative democracy when we fill out our ballot, that we then need to work with our neighbours to make sure our councillors know what we think and need and we need to pitch in to help get it.
Ottawa once had as many as fifteen advisory committees, filled by volunteers, experts in their fields who had the time in retirement or felt the obligation to give to their community with their experience and expertise. Those committees were a resource to councillors - who, despite how it seems, really don’t know everything - and expanded the horizon of Ottawa’s future. Advisory committees have now been reduced to the five or so that are provincially mandated.
Our City needs to do more to encourage citizen participation, starting with projecting an acceptance of it and following with seeking and funding it.
Jake
These are eminently rational suggestions, Neil. Unfortunately, there is not a chance in hell that they will come to be accepted by the powers that be. The whole City culture is against it. In 30 years of dealing with City Hall I believe I've seen it happen once (1x) that staff came forward with options. The City is run by senior staff in cahoots with the Mayor's office. Nobody else has the power to do anything. There are almost no exceptions to this rule.
There is the occasional goof-up, such as proposing a 100% increase in seniors' bus passes. That gets corrected. I wouldn't be surprised if this was put forward so it would get all the attention, leaving no oxigen for other issues.
One comment on the current process, though. Everything you say is correct but the actual budget making process starts as soon as the previous budget is passed. Staff submits ideas to senior management. After triage, and quantification of "pressures," numbers are added up and squeezed into the politically salable overall number which becomes the "Budget Direction."
The other thing to note is that all proposed changes are incremental. At the start of Sutcliffe's term there were supposed to be a series of "program reviews." Like anything else, this has quickly turned into a fake PR exercise -- see https://engage.ottawa.ca/yourideas -- a long way from anything resembling zero-base budgeting.
Councillors who understand the situation and are prepared to do something about it can be counted on one hand. Until that is a majority, and we have a progressive mayor providing leadership (task #1: refresh senior management), nothing will change, I'm afraid.
Well done Neil!!! Makes so much sense.
Couldn't agree with you more Neil. I was one of the co-authors of the Op-Ed piece that referred to you as the "first person" to speak! We are hoping to have a follow-up piece published in the next week or two.
This city needs a serious rethink on how it functions.