The RDN does not have a comprehensive awareness of the ‘Total Property Tax Burden’  citizens are under.  There is not effective quantification of the taxpayers’ ability to pay the planned taxes that could inform ‘Real Fiscal Balance’ where spending needs are balanced with the taxpayers’ true ability to pay.  Instead, we are asked to take on debt by ‘Deferring Our Taxes’ to fund runaway annual RDN spending and a rapidly expanding RDN bureaucracy. 

Poor planning processes and practices that are not bounded by an overall Maximum Spending Target and clear, quantified performance metrics by department results in an ‘all-in then fail to thin out’ approach.  The board’s decision making processes and meeting approaches undermine their decision making effectiveness leaving us with little prioritization of major capital projects or Financial Fiscal Management.

The core RDN Services do not have clear performance metrics that measure the size and quality of each service. This is key to be able to assess each investment in a service and know the intended impact on expanding the services or improving the quality of services.  With clear performance metrics, effective prioritization and performance management can take place.   To make matters more challenging, the RDN often struggles to bring projects in on-time and on-budget.  This is a symptom of ineffective project management and related contract design and enforcement.

There is a lack of ‘Total Tax Transparency’ or any metrics for measuring real fiscal balance.  There is little accountability to the public for spending levels driven by a lack of a Board Level Finance Committee, or Provincial Auditor General.  Worse, our RDN Elected Officials have spearheaded efforts to remove public referendums & public approval processes altogether. Some items like Hospital Budgets, Libraries and the like have little to no public engagement in budget setting.  Combine all of this with the politics of a RDN Board dominated by Nanaimo and we get a growing Rural – Urban Divide.