This week, the provincial government announced the creation of a new auditor general for local government. It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing.
The watchdog, due to set up shop in Surrey this spring, is billed as a new source of "neutral, nonbinding advice" that will ensure municipal tax dollars are spent well.
On the surface this sounds like a fine idea, but in light of Victoria's history with arm's-length institutions, British Columbians should take it with a grain of salt.
If the auditor general's office shapes up to be an objective, competent body with full independence from the province, it could well provide a valuable service. Its number crunchers could sniff out inefficiencies and hold up bad civic decision making to voter scrutiny. Assuming the savings they found outweighed the cost of the agency, it would be good for everyone.
But if the office is subject to interference from on high, it will become a destructive political tool of the party in power. Much of the recent rise in municipal spending can be attributed to the downloading of costs from higher levels of government and long-deferred infrastructure maintenance that has come home to roost.
If the province, through a new auditor general puppet, decides to create illusory savings by kicking necessary expenditures further down the road - as it did with B.C. Hydro - the end result will be a painful hit for future municipal taxpayers. The devil will be in the details, and the devil in this case could be a fearsome beast.
