Dear Editor:
Re: Where would you cut? Tony Fabian, Letters to Editor, Burnaby NOW, Jan. 9.
When I was on city council and voted against the BCA budget every year, Mayor Derek Corrigan would ask me the same question as Mr. Fabian. What cuts do you propose to make? The answer hasn't changed. Running the city without raising taxes doesn't necessarily require cutting anything. What is required is that the city be run more efficiently.
The city is doing lots of things that could be done more cost effectively by a private contractor. Also, the city should abandon its "fair-wage rule," which requires all bidders for city work to pay wages and provide benefits equivalent to those provided to union workers. Very few other cities have this rule, and it costs all of us money. Finally, the people who can do the best job of making the operations more efficient are the department managers.
The budget for next year should be the same as for last year and the funds allocated in the same proportion as last year with the department heads responsible for deciding how to spend those monies most efficiently.
Garth Evans, Burnaby
