Greater Sudbury's CAO has an issue with the $1.4 billion figure often cited as the city's roads and other infrastructure deficit.
Ed Archer says that figure represents how much it would cost to bring all the infrastructure into a good state of repair, something that no city would do.
“Practically, we don't have the capacity to do all that, and pragmatically, why would you?” Archer said, sitting in his fourth floor office at Tom Davies Square on Tuesday. “There isn't a community I can think of anywhere that would have all of their assets in exactly the right condition.”
Instead, he'd like to identify which infrastructure is a priority when it comes to repair or replacement and tackle those projects in more manageable chunks.
“The $1.4 billion number is a judgment,” Archer said. "Our finance folks are already working with KPMG on a long-range financial plan that will guide our choices about how much work to anticipate and how to pay for it over the next 20 years."
This is Archer's first budget since he became CAO in May, taking over a position that was subject to a lot of controversy in the last year. First, Doug Nadorozny was let go last April, and Bob Johnston, who held the job on an interim basis, also left last fall.
Johnston, who just stepped down as CEO of the airport, went public with his concerns about city hall, pointing to a culture of negativity and frequent interference from politicians.
But Archer, who said he did his homework before accepting the job, said his experience so far has been nothing but positive.
“The experience since I got here has been nothing but unqualified support,” he said. “Councillors have been respectful and supportive. Staff have been open and encouraging – and I think they have been encouraged by the small changes we've made so far.
“That gives me a lot of confidence that the organization is going to be a lot stronger, even a year from now.”
As he makes his way through his first city budget process, Archer said he's been talking about a new approach to the budget "literally since I arrived."
"We started the conversation with council by saying, what would you like services to look like?” he said. “We think you want them generally to look like what's being delivered now. But if there are changes, tell us what you would like the changes to be.
"They debated those and set directions for us that said, keep the service levels that we've got, have plans with no more than a 3.6 per cent increase."
That approach focuses on the roughly 60 different areas of services the city provides, and putting a cost to each service.
"The premise is we have staff build business plans that say what we're going to do for the year, from a service perspective,” he said. “Then, looking at what we've got in terms of resources, then we can identify whether there needs to be a change in the budget. If there is a change, then there's a business case. And council will see those business cases and decide whether they're worth investing in."
The business cases will include ways of paying for them, including accessing money from upper levels of government, user fees and debt financing, as well as tax increases.
"So instead of focusing first on price, we change the discussion to more of a focus on service -- what do you want the services to be? Here's your price," Archer said.
"It isn't just about taxes -- it's about services, and taxes are one way to pay for those services."
Archer and budget chief Ed Stankiewicz have been making the rounds in recent weeks, holding public meetings on the budget in different areas of the city, in front of crowds of 25-60 people he said.
In 2015, the city froze taxes and managed to pay the $6 million cost through a process called Project $6 million – P6M for short – in which city staff found ways to reduce the budget. This year, even though the city's landfill contract came in at $2 million more than forecast, Archer said the increase will be kept to 3.6 per cent.
So why not just do the same process every year?
"I would call P6M an extraordinary example of finding ways to get the organization working differently,” Archer responded. “But differently isn't always better, and differently isn't always more efficient, either.
"We may be able to, on the surface, keep things going, if there's any variation to those norms, we may not have the capacity to respond ... than we did before P6M."
In other words, Archer said those spending cuts did impact services, and that's something he would like to see explained a little better. So this year, he said councillors and the public will have a better idea of the impact of having to save the additional $2 million will have.
"So if I'm spending $2 million more on waste management, I'm changing my spending level on some other basket of services over here,” he said. "Those kinds of details make it easier for us when we have a conversation with a resident who says, 'Well, you found $6 million last year, and you just found another $2 million, how about next year you find $2 million more. You're good at this!'
"I would say, if that's the wish of council, then we will. But there will be an effect on service. I'm interested personally in ensuring that, whatever we do, we do well. If council says the price has to come down by $2 million, that's fine. Which services, council, are you interested in affecting for that change to happen?"
Because in the end, Archer said it's the politicians who choose the policies.
“Our job is to give them the best professional advice we can, and to explain as best as we possibly can the consequences of those choices," he said. “The intent of the process is to make the connection between the service that you want and the price required to get it.”
