I wasn't slacking off yesterday. I had inquiries to make involving lengthy communications.
The last one related to the half million dollar software program the town purchased about eight months ago.
It was an expenditure of $440,000 or thereabouts, before year's end.
A consultant was involved so a fee there also.
I argued against it the project. To no avail.
A couple of months later $38,000 additional funds were requested. Something had been overlooked in the previous purchase.
You may recall the software package was for the purpose of asset management.
A record would be kept of daily work orders. What repairs were required. How much manpower, equipment, time and other details would be funneled into the system.
I must confess the need for that level of detail completely escaped me.
Then I received a query from an observant resident about manpower and various equipment on site to repair what appeared to be a relatively small task.
AHA!! I thought.
The perfect opportunity to illustrate the benefit of the expensive software .
I addressed the question to the Mayor at a Council meeting.
"Certainly, Councillor" the Mayor assured me "Just send your question to the Director. he will be able to provide the information."
So I did.
But I didn't... get the information.
The system is not yet up and running, the director informed me.
Weeks went by. Yesterday I forwarded an inquiry to the manager of the I.T. department.
Is the new system up and running?
Received a response instead from the Chief Financial Officer advising only Directors provide Councillors with information. To ensure the information is correct.
You may recall in 2010, Directors advised Council water rates were to increase 12% ,if I re-call correctly.
Estimates of water loss, increased from 8% to 12% partly justified the increase.
The Directors insisted all parks, works and fire department use of unmetered water was accounted for in department budgets and not part of water loss estimates.
That year , I asked for a record of water breaks in the municipality to understand a 50% increase in water loss.
The information was refused.
Directors could do that in the last Council.
It was like when I asked for legal costs incurred by the Mayor's practice of retaining legal counsel on her own initiative.
Those figures were also refused. .
Despite the law that entitles all of us access to information on public spending.
Another substantial increase in water rates was imposed in 2011 with the same insistence all unmetered water use by works, parks and fire was charged to the various department budgets.It was not included in water loss estimates.
Which were included in calculating rates for meter users.
Finally, in 2012, it was acknowledged unmetered water used by parks,works and fire had not been previously charged to the various departments .
Meter users had been overcharged in previous years by an amount
of $470.000 or thereabouts.
Details were not provided.
Just the statement the directors could no longer justify charging non-metered water use by town departments to residential and business metered users.
It took the second year of a new Council.
It took persistence of a handful of residents to wring that admission from the Directors.
It will take more, much more, than that to restore my confidence in information provided to me by some Town Directors.
That is a serious state of affairs.
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