Councillors zero in on '10 budget

CITY HALL: Cap on spending, salary hikes proposed
Posted By MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION, EXPOSITOR STAFF

City councillors say they must act now to protect taxpayers through a deepening recession by ordering staff to bring in a 2010 budget with no tax increase.

They are also giving administrators marching orders to win collective agreements from unions that carry no wage increases throughout the life of any contract.

Union leaders have been told that negotiations about to begin have been postponed until council has its strategy in place.

Councillors agreed on those directives Thursday evening while they huddled with senior staff in a special finance committee session in the public library, and plotted a strategy to combat recessionary pressures on next year's budget.

As they alternated between open and closed-door sessions, several councillors said they are under no illusions that it will be tough to keep the lid on a cauldron of public demands that normally increase budgets.

They also conceded they have an enormous task on their hands to persuade public sector unions to fall in line on salaries.

"This should not be seen as a punitive measure," said Mayor Mike Hancock, anticipating an early angry response from the unions to council's strategy.

Good start to the process lets help them with their resolve Pr

$100K earners double - Brantford Expositor - Ontario, CA

This is ridiculous -have your services increased by a 100% -another first for Brantord on the negative side of the performance sheet- lets do something about it- to be continued" PR


$100K earners double
EXTRA! Local list of top pay-getters grows to nearly 300 names Posted By SUSAN GAMBLE, EXPOSITOR STAFF

Brantford blew past the provincial increase in the $100,000 Club by doubling the number of names on the list of well-paid public servants.
$100,000 club:Check out the complete local list onPage A7
This year's list of 53,572 names, culled from ministries, municipalities and provincially funded organizations across the province, is up 28% from the previous year

But, in Brantford, the number leapt to 298 names from 146 -- a 104% increase.

As usual, the man in charge of the emergency room at the Brantford General Hospital was the top earner on the city's list.
Dr. Gene Jarrell drew $404,309 in 2008. He was joined by other emergency room physicians Dr. Eric Irvine at $284,022, Dr. Anna Jocic at $260,882, Dr. Andrea Unger at $181,269 and Dr. Brian Colborne at $147,302.
Five registered nurses made the list this year, while retiring hospital president and CEO Rick Woodcock made $223,040 and his vice-president, Joseph Buller, drew a $181,959 salary.
"With nurses moving onto the list, that's definitely a change, but they're on pay grids and as you move along with experience you increase your remuneration," said BGH spokesman Gary Chalk.
For hospital managers, Chalk noted that responsibilities have dramatically increased over the last five years.
"A 40-hour work week is nonexistent and managers don't get overtime," he said. "We often find it almost impossible to use vacation time before you lose it from year to year and we're dealing with issues that are certainly significant."
Top-earner Jarrell is more than welcome to his salary, said Chalk, since he all but lives in the hospital's emergency department.

"When I'm on my deathbed, give me Gene Jarrell," said Chalk. "Many times he's responsible for 30 patients all at the same time and he takes that responsibility seriously. Combine that responsibility with his long hours and you see he earns the money."
Chalk said that Woodcock, who retired in 2008, was hired back on a contract basis until the end of 2009 to give the board more time to conduct a search for a new president. Some of Woodcock's remuneration reflects his salary, vacation bank and retirement payout.

In 2007, there were 20 workers on the list from the hospital, while last year there were 28.
City workers on the list doubled to 69 from 35.

Much of that is attributed to arbitration settlements for police officers and firefighters.
In fact, it pays to be in law and order:
There are 16 city police sergeants, inspectors and managers on the list and 28 employees with the fire department.
Police Chief Derek McElveny earned $171,040, while his deputy chief, Jeff Kellner, brought in $159,375.
At the fire department, fire chief Garth Dix earned $129,566, while his platoon chiefs made between $107,000 and $112,000.

Over at the courthouse, four provincial judges got a 15% boost with a raise to $264,368.
Crown attorney Bob Kindon's income almost hit $200,000 last year, while the assistant Crown attorneys earned between $125,000 and $161,000.

Ten OPP workers are on the list -- almost the same number as last year but with few of the same people.
Commander David Durant's $123,636 salary was surpassed by Const. Kevin York's $142,847.
Much of the burgeoning list is due to salary increases at both local boards of education.
With 33 principals joining the list for the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board, their list soared to 42 from eight..

"An increase in salaries caused people to exceed the $100,000 limit," said Wally Easton, association director for the Brant Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic District School Board.
Easton said one thing that helped tip several salaries onto the list was that, through a quirk of the calendar, there were 27 pay packages in 2008 instead of the normal 26.
"The salary disclosure legislation is based on your T4 salary, not necessarily the annual salary that a person gets."
The Grand Erie District School board's list also jumped substantially, to 86 from 31, welcoming 56 principals and vice-principals to the list.
There was a substantial drop in the remuneration for the executive director of the Brant Children's Aid Society. Andrew Koster's salary was listed last year at $166,615 but dropped to $139,500.
At Laurier Brantford, new president Max Blouw earned $362,093 compared to outgoing president Robert Rosehart's $366,711 the previous year and three local faculty members moved onto the list.
Similarly, at Mohawk College, five faculty members moved onto the list.

With the establishment in Brantford of the health integration network for this area of Southern Ontario, five new positions were added to the list, including CEO Pat Mandy, earning $279,453.

At the Brantford casino, a new manager moved into place, but just three employees are on the list.

The full salary disclosure list -- which can be found at www.tinyurl.com/d494ez-- looks at all those substantially funded by the taxpayer, amounting to about a million workers.

About 6% of them make the $100,000 list.

Public Water Safety Record Falsified-action requested

Citizen petition for new Brantford By-Law


Let it be resolved that any individual or group who falsifies records that impact on the quality of life or safety of the public should immediately be terminated without benefits or recourse.

Citizen Watch Committee - Brant Taxpayers Coalition - March 2009

Please contact your political representative to express your views. Ask the Mayor, councillors for an accounting of the attached water reporting incident and help them make the right decision Contact information is given after the following information article .

Water treatment plant incident raises questions

The following quote is taken from Part II of the Walkerton Inquiry Report at page 5:
"While it is not possible to utterly remove all risk from a water system, the recommendations' overall goal is to ensure that Ontario's drinking water systems deliver water with a level of risk so negligible that a reasonable and informed person would feel safe drinking the water."
I read with interest and concern the report in Saturday's (March 7) Expositor concerning an incident at the Holmedale water treatment plant.
I have also read the column in Tuesday's (March 10) edition by Tim Philp under the heading "City should be ashamed of water secrecy."
The later is an understatement and should raise a number of questions in the minds of city taxpayers:
Who should we believe?
The City's general manager of Engineering and Operational Services, who says: "the memo was a legal opinion on yellow paper, so it was confidential" and "We didn't want to release information until we had a full investigation. It's a staff issue, there are procedures and we have unions here."
The general manager went on to say because the incident was not serious the issue was about how it was reported internally, and not about the safety of the water.
Or ...
The opinion of the assistant city solicitor who says the matter is important "because bacteria and other dangerous substances can attach to the particles." The "particles" are the subject of concern that were released into our water system by mistake and the regulations state that they should rarely exceed 0.3 parts per million and never exceed 1.0 parts per million.
According to the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition system) the incident had recorded readings that "exceeded 1.0" part per million.
It is fortunate that this was discovered as quickly as it was. The operator on duty had failed to enter the above in his log book. In fact the operator on duty had falsified a legal document.
A log book is just that and failing to make accurate entries either by omission or commission is falsification.
Is this the first time an incident such as this has occurred or have there been others that have gone undetected or unreported?
Are the employees at the plant properly trained and do they understand the importance of accurate reporting?
Does the city manager of Engineering and Operational Services fully understand the potential impact that this incident could have had on the city's water system and the health of the citizens of this community?
As a concerned citizen of Brantford I would like to be informed of the outcome of the ministry investigation and be assured that regardless of past practice the management and staff at the City's water treatment plants are held responsible and accountable for the way in which they carry out their duties.
Quite frankly, I find it disturbing that the city manager of Engineering and Operational Service would be more concerned about "staff issues, procedures and unions" than the safety of the citizens of Brantford. I remain reasonable and (hopefully) informed.
Thank you for listening. Doug Foulds Brantford (Article emphasis added)

Contact your public representatives to get the answers - it’s your money and safety, tell them to use it wisely and protect your quality of life and water safety.

Public Brantford Representatives

Mayor Mike Hancock 519-759-4150 mhancock@brantford.ca

WARD 1 Councillors Jennifer Kinneman 519-717-3872 jkinneman@brantford.ca
Mark Littell 519-717-0403 mlittell@brantford.ca

WARD 2 Councillors John Sless 519-717-0673 jsless@brantford.ca
Vince Bucci 519-717-0518 mailto:Bucci519-717-0518vbucci@brantford.ca

WARD 3 Councillors Greg Martin 519-754-7269 gmartin@brantford.ca
Dan McCreary519-761-2439 dmccreary@brantford.ca

WARD 4 Councillors Richard Carpenter 519-770-6027 rcarpenter@brantford.ca
James Calnan 519-732-6476 jcalnan@brantford.ca

WARD 5 Councillors Marguerite Ceschi-Smith 519-758-5093 mceschi-smith@brantford.ca
John Bradford 519-755-8255mailto:jbradford@brantford.ca

Provincial representative Dave Levac

dlevac.mpp@liberal.ola.org

Federal representative Phil Coleman

McColeman.P@parl.gc.ca

Brantford Press Editors

Expositor John Chambers Editor jchambers@theepositor.ccom Editorial
Brantford.com Greg McMillan Editor http://www.blogger.com/editor@brantford.com

The 7 new truths about your customers -consumer power

The 7 new truths about your customers – from Profit Magazine

How you can employ just a few simple tactics to satisfy your customers' fast-rising demands.

By Kara Aaserud with digest and comment by Sieg Holle

The Customer king is a positive change factor and progressive agent .for improved high value growth everywhere

The information revolution is bigger then the industrial revolution with many more far reaching implications .We live in a Inter-Net connected or wired world, without virtual borders. This is a world where the customer is king, in a highly aware society that has the ability to instantly communicate their requirements, their hierarchy of needs everywhere 24/7 in the convenience of their residence. They mostly have the freedom of choosing the products and services that suit their needs and requirements through their purchasing power. The ability to instantly communicate, find alternatives, purchase what they want, allows them to overcome many old restrictions, restraints and hurdles. The new reality trend:

o Causes a revolution in customer ,the buyers’ expectations

o Empowers customers to find better service, price and selection with little or no effort.

o Freedom of choice ensures that the old saying “buyer beware” has shifted to “seller beware” –you can easily lose your source of revenue if you don’t deliver on your promises

You need to understand how this revolution has created the seven new truths about your customers-the bill payers, the taxpayers, the service payers, and your market constituents-and how you can employ just a few simple tactics to satisfy their fast-rising demands. The stakes are high .Conversely if you do not listen, do not adapt to the new communication reality you could fail and be part of a splendid but spent force and tradition that once ruled by taking the customer for granted.

It has become easier to mobilize change agents, advocacy group and those that have a cause. The new Ralph Naders, will instantly tell every one of “consumer lemons”, the new Kings will instantly share the “I have a dream philosophy “with their interested peers to change and challenge the existing order.

The people that spend the money for products and services are the new customer Kings. Customers that expect to be heard If they are ignored, mislead, monopolized or taken for granted they have the power to say no. instantly inform others and affect change by moving their spending elsewhere. A summary digest of the new rules and their implications follows.

New customer rules	The facts and reality	Implications
1: Customers won't give you a second chance “ lower bad service or bad performance tolerance levels” “ more informed –the easy access wired information web revolution “	- - 23% of Canadian consumers said they would quit doing business with a company immediately after a bad experience, twice the level (11%) in 2007. In the same period, those who said they would speak to a supervisor before taking their business elsewhere tumbled from 49% to 36%.	In a world of consumer empowerment, you have to get it right from the beginning. Bad service desertion - due to a dichotomy in the marketplace. Some companies are getting customer service horribly wrong, more are starting to get it right. Each time consumers get a taste of great service, they no longer wish to settle for the subpar variety offered elsewhere.
2: Customers control the conversation “Companies no longer hold absolute sway over the decisions and behavior of consumers, “	Unhappy consumers used to have few means to tarnish a company’s name: word of mouth and their inner circle of family, friends and colleagues . Rise of social-media channels such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and of Web-enabled mobile devices that make it easy to complain in real time about a lousy customer experience. And the Internet’s archival nature means a bad review lingers in cyberspace.	Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000, The Web not only provides consumers with a platform for expressing their preferences, grievances and experiences, but it also provides companies with a means of listening to them When you come across negative feedback—which you will—respond with sincerity and transparency
3: Customers expect to be heard “Virtually everyone has an emotional desire to be heard,”.	Never before has feedback, and the ways in which you collect it, mattered more to your customers and, therefore, to your reputation.	If you don’t offer them a range of channels through which they can share their frustrations and concerns (or compliments), they’ll soon find their own, often more destructive, outlets. “A company that fulfils that need will have a huge advantage over competitors who ignore it.”
4: Customers will bail if you keep them waiting	Ten years ago, you could take three or four days to solve a problem,” “Today, clients want an instantaneous response.” The gap between what clients expect (90%and what companies typically deliver is 54%	In our wired, 24/7 and globalized economy, speed is king. If you can’t get back to customers quickly enough—whether by phone, blog, e-mail or face to face—someone else will. Set specific response times then design systems to deliver
5: Customers know more than you do What value do you bring to the transaction if the customer is better informed than you are?	It has become far easier for consumers to do their own web research and shop around before even entering the store. This informed group is growing fast and is over 1/3 of population Customer has already been to all the comparison websites that the companies do not want you to go to,	Switch your focus. “It’s highly unlikely you’ll win the information war,”. “You should try to win the relationship and service war instead.” Staff ,who are passionate about the product or service, take the fear and complexity out of the buying process and have the emotional empathy Have the right organizational structure in place, including training and incentives. to build a culture of good customer service.
6: Customers see transparency as the key to credibility Transparency keeps the firm credible and, more important, gives it an edge over its rivals	The bleak economy likely has you feeling even more inclined than usual to keep your cards close to your chest. Yet it’s tough to keep bad news secret in an ultra-wired world, and if it leaks out online, the damage to your firm’s reputation can spread far and fast	“When you make mistakes, you’ve got to own up to them. And it’s much better if you own up to them before somebody else decides to own up for you.” “People find it refreshing. They realize that I’m a person like they are, that I’m a human being. And that has allowed me to move ahead of the competition.”
7: Customers insist on individual treatment You need to nurture advocacy.”	A cookie-cutter approach that analyzes consumers based on broad measures such as age, sex and income doesn’t cut it anymore. As customers become increasingly diverse, the gap(30) between what they want—more personalized, customized service (88)—and what companies are delivering is widening.(58) The key to understanding customers is to listen to what they have to say and respond. The objective is a simple one: to truly get to know your customers, so you can serve them in a way that meets their individual needs	A‘one size fits all’ approach, which is the standard model, all you can really do is throw more money and people at it, and constantly strive to address the mass,”. is not optimal. True competitive advantage comes from being able to tailor your products or services to the individuals you serve Analytics software that measures client behavior. “A lot of ROI models around customer service are hopelessly outdated,”. “They’re typically based on frameworks of the customer’s lifetime value, which are good but not sufficient for this new world of virility and word of mouth.”

A executive summary of the new consumer reality – The Customer king

New Era- an opportunity for better government

Amid global economic turmoil, there is a broad consensus about two factors: Economic recovery depends largely on effective government action, and yet the public is also skeptical about government's ability to both fulfill its newly expanded mandate and achieve efficiency-minded savings that will help restrain overall spending.

Resolving this paradox requires pursuing a new era in government, upgrading its managerial capabilities to ensure a stronger return on taxpayers' investment. Political leaders and civil servants will need to go further and faster than they did in previous reform initiatives to meet this “whole-government transformation” imperative.

Canada's leaders can build on substantive steps already taken. Thanks to both federal and provincial reform efforts of recent years, Canada is better positioned than many other countries to deliver further change. Canadian leaders can also continue to learn selectively from what has worked well in other countries.

For example, New Zealand responded to an economic crisis in the 1980s by giving each government agency a clear set of objectives and an agency-level CEO with the flexibility to innovate – and it used this change to shrink the size of government while improving the quality of public services. Similarly, Sweden responded to a 1990s financial crisis by using top-down budgets to drive annual improvements in government efficiency that exceeded many parts of the private sector.

Larger and more complex countries have recently undertaken equally ambitious initiatives. For nearly 12 years, the British government, under Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown, has pursued an integrated reform program that links departmental budget allocations to predefined outcome targets – successes so far include reduced waiting times for medical treatment and improved test scores in public schools. In the past year, the French government under President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a program to re-think every aspect of its public service model. In Washington, President Barack Obama has put government reform at the forefront of his agenda.

There is no single prescription for success, yet there is a core set of priorities that we believe define whole-government transformation. Foremost is the need to improve performance and delivery through focused objectives, consistent measurement of progress, accountability for success and failure, and alignment across government agencies on decision making, performance management and service delivery.

For example, lean operations can streamline decades-old processes and reshape public services around the citizen. Modern information systems can transform the use of data and analysis, enabling better decisions. And superior talent management can help public agencies attract, develop and retain highly skilled employees – especially important as Canada prepares for a wave of retirements by government employees.

Achieving clarity on such broad priorities is just the start of the reform process. Implementing truly transformational change is arguably a greater challenge. Many an ambitious reform initiative has delivered only part of its promise. Four factors are critical:

First, leaders should establish a vision of reform that tells public sector employees what is required of them and why, and that causes citizens to expect and demand high-quality services. Articulating a reform narrative has been a priority of Mr. Blair, Mr. Brown and Mr. Sarkozy, illustrating the importance of top leaders' full and sustained engagement in reform.

Second, leaders should articulate and deliver a prioritized program. This means being both comprehensive, touching all aspects of government; and specific, setting out objectives for performance improvement. There must be a clear sense of what “good” looks like, with change implemented in priority order and manageable chunks.

Third, a renewed institutional capacity should be built to drive reform at an accelerated pace and with sufficient rigour. The Blair government's “Prime Minister's Delivery Unit” was charged with meeting top-priority objectives for individual departments while embedding a delivery culture across government. More recently, the French government created a co-ordinating group to drive cross-government reforms, ensuring that top-quality performance is on the agenda of every department.

Fourth, there should be a new focus on building managerial capabilities. Managing talent in any decentralized, diverse organization is no easy task. The recent Harper budget's proposed centralization of the federal human resources function – realigning six separate federal agencies – marks an important step forward. Yet it does not address the human capital gap in attracting and developing high-potential employees, or the managerial gap in leading them.

The economic crisis presents Ottawa and the provincial governments with an opportunity to embrace a more radical phase of reform. In doing so, they can create a more agile and resilient public sector and help Canada become more competitive to meet future challenges. Jiri Maly is a principal and Nora Aufreiter is a director in the Toronto office of McKinsey

Do we have the will to do this? -the stakes are worthhile . leadership in the world by" creating a more agile and resilient public sector and help Canada become more competitive to meet future challenges." PR

What we need is leadership, not gigantic deficits - Brantford Expositor - Ontario, CA

What we need is leadership, not gigantic deficits - Brantford Expositor - Ontario, CA: "ADDING BACK THE DEBT
Over the next six years, the budget office estimates, we could easily add back the $105 billion in debt that we dropped between 1997 and last year. Canada's debt-to-GDP level, the economists keep repeating, is the lowest in the G-7, at about 30 per cent. Not for much longer.
Here's the amazing thing: Nobody cares. Not the Conservatives, not the Liberals, and of course neither the New Democrats nor the Bloc.
They all want Harper to spend, spend, spend. Indeed, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has indicated that if Harper doesn't borrow and spend enough, he'll invoke the coalition and topple his government."

And it's not just them. Most nominally conservative think tanks, and all the economists, are singing from the same song sheet. Their mantra: Canada is in a sound position fiscally, relative to the rest of the G7. We can afford to incur some debt; indeed we must do so, if we are to avoid an economic apocalypse. As long as the spending is "wise," and "targeted," and as long as the resulting deficit is "cyclical" and not "structural," the experts tell us, it's all good.
My question (which I concede is impolite and possibly annoying when we're all about to receive new bridges, roads, hospitals, schools, community centres, hydro towers, sewage treatment plants, windmills and clay pots for our gardens) is this: Why are we doing it?

The message -end the age of unproductive entitlement-re-invent ourselves through leadership and learning how to compete- PR

Canadians-lets help the Governor general

Another negative first for Canada that can be avoided? We have a situation where the Bloc or separatists are the king makers to Canada's political rule. It is ironic that Canadians paid the way for this situation to happen. Without our public subsidy-and left to there own fund raising efforts from their own Quebec constituents- they would never have been able to reach this level of ccntrol or influence. Dion ,the champion of clarity -"do you want to separate"-under the Liberal Chretein government is now beholden to the Bloc to capture and maintain power from the elected conservative government.

Tragically-when the Conservatives called for economic restraint in these acknowledged hard times - cutting special interest subsidies to poitical parties - the knives came out. The hypocrasy is blatant. The proposed political hyjacking of parliament by the coalition ,Liberals,NDP and Bloc Quebeois is a potential reality that needs the Governor General's approval. The stakes are high. We are now potentially forced to be governed by a unelected special interest group of people with questionable skills to weather the economic storm.

Governer General -Why not ask the Canadian people-in the form of a plebicsite what they wish you to do? In the public interest , a plebicsite could add clarity and direct democratic credibiity to the situation.