At first blush, the provincial government announcement to create a new auditing function didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Who, after all, is going to argue against a plan to ensure our tax dollars aren’t spent wisely? It should be a motherhood and apple pie, no-brainer of an idea. But is it?
I thought it was interesting that the notion of an auditor-general for municipal governments was first sent up the flagpole during the fall’s Union of BC Municipalities conference. I’m not sure just how warm a reception it received, but it didn’t seem to create much of a furor. But then, I thought, how likely was that to happen? How likely are municipal politicians — town and city councils and regional directors — to want to challenge, at least publicly, a provincial government initiative, even if it does step on their toes?
Municipal governments are decidedly junior in their functions. Although they do have taxing authority, they are closely regulated by their provincial mommies and daddies. Their activities are well-defined under the Local Government Act and similar laws. Each and every bylaw they pass must receive approval from the province before they are enacted. Local governments can’t run up operating deficits and their books must be audited — remember that term? — independently before the fiscal year’s books are closed.
So with all those restrictions in place, where did the need for a municipal auditor general come from? Well, the BC Chamber of Commerce body was quick to take credit, pointing to a 2010 “working paper” it produced. On reading the paper, it became clear that the major bone of contention is the disproportionately high rates that businesses, and especially industries, pay for local taxes. I certainly have no argument with that contention.
The paper acknowledges the challenges local governments face: “It is also important to recognize that while the tax system is unwieldy at best, with no similarly complex system anywhere in Canada, the environment in which municipalities must operate has itself become increasingly challenging. With the downloading of services to municipal governments and the infrastructure funding gap from senior levels of government, municipalities are pressed to provide citizen service, and infrastructure maintenance and development with limited funding stream capacities. According to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, only eight cents of each tax dollar paid in Canada goes to municipalities. The rest goes to the federal and provincial governments.”
So, local governments have an increasingly larger role to play when it comes to providing the services their taxpayers demand. We know that. And we know that local governments operate on a short leash. And we also know that the provincial government is running annual operating deficits that prevent it from addressing, for instance, our embarrassingly high rate of child poverty. The auditor-general for municipal governments looks to me like a back-door way of addressing local tax inequities when the government can, through legislation, make the changes if it feels they are that important.
“While all municipalities in B.C. are required to have a financial audit and report this information publicly, the chamber does not believe that this goes far enough in introducing a level of accountability and scrutiny to municipal decision making,” according to the B.C. chamber.
Nonsense, I say. How is it that local governments, whose elected officials are our neighbours, who shop in our stores and walk on our sidewalks, are not accountable enough? Their meetings are open to the public and the simple fact of the matter is that almost no one cares enough to attend (despite the argument that Creston’s town council meets at 4 p.m., during working hours for many, public attendance is no worse that when it met in the evening). And, as I pointed out, local governments are subject to far closer scrutiny, and their actions are regulated to a far greater extent, than those of their senior counterparts.
If the provincial government has concerns about property tax discrepancies between residential and business properties, it should address them with legislation and not introduce yet another bureaucracy that has nothing more than an advisory role to play. Paternalism or, in our case, maternalism, already plays too great a part in our system of government.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.