I believe that budget development used to be informed by what it was expected service delivery would cost. That is, if Transit Services estimated that it would cost $200M to provide the scheduled service, then that was what was submitted (plus a buffer to cover additions) to the Council for approval. Once all of the overall budget’s pieces were gathered, Council discussions ensued, based on what it felt could be reasonably deferred (and the consequences of doing same), and then the tax rate would be set based on the final, approved, budget. Not every department got every penny that it asked for, but what was left out was well understood – and usually not detrimental to the existing core service.
Then came the Dark Times; the times when the tax rate was set by the Mayor – before any estimated costs were submitted – and the various departments were told what their budgets would be. What it actually cost to provide a service was not taken into account when a budget was defined. Departments simply had to ‘cut their suit to fit the cloth’.
So, this would represent what we now have at OC Transpo:
Watching OC Transpo’s senior management, I get the feeling that it figures that OC Transpo needs to be seen as being in crisis. That that is the only way that things will be taken seriously by the politicians.
Take the SPIRIT trains as an example. They had been running for years without anyone owning up to the bogie problem. It wasn’t until the GM shut down the trains and made a huge media stink about how potentially dangerous the trains were, in their present condition, that Alstom finally said that it would redesign the bogie. Bringing the problem out of hiding and into the light meant that Alstom might lose sales. If you are trying to sell trains, and they keep running normal service while you claim to be investigating a possible issue, you can point out to potential customers that the trains are running fine. If the largest buyer is openly declaring that the trains can not be run due to a potentially unsafe design, then you need to tell future clients that you are fixing the problem.
Crisis makes people take notice. All those complaints that Councilors are getting reinforce the fact that OC Transpo can not provide the service with the amount of money that Council has allotted it.
A few years ago, we would have heard of a small projected deficit in the transit budget, and how steps were being taken to cover the shortfall. Now we are hearing about “structural” problems with the funding, and huge $120M deficits. This takes it up to crisis state. This is getting noticed by Councillors. Maybe it will actually get them to see what damage they have done over the years. And, maybe, we can move out of the Dark Times.
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