Open Letter to Mayor Bev Buckway and council:
At the end of March or early April, we were told you and your councillors could not alter the budget proposal as the process was initiated in June of the prior year.
In essence, your four per cent increase was already decided upon before you went out to your public for consultation.
Accordingly, the Utilities Consumers’ Group is now urging you to request your administrators work out budget proposals for:
1) the four per cent increase you have already forecasted for the upcoming next year’s budget, as well as two alternatives;
2) a status quo report with no increases for next year along with various scenarios for cost savings from each department; and
3) a report with a four per cent decrease with various cut-back scenarios or savings from each department.
At the same time, we request the same type of outline around the utility charges (i.e. proposed seven per cent increase, no increase and seven per cent decrease).
The public should be given the opportunity to see and evaluate these various scenarios at the time of consultation with us. In this way, Whitehorse citizens will truly be empowered to have some say in the budget debate.
Roger Rondeau
Utilities Consumers’ Group
Whitehorse