Insanity (as in profound foolishness or irrationality) and outrageous (shockingly bad or excessive). These are the words I used at the Wednesday, May 21 General Issues Committee (GIC) meeting regarding the $5.1 million dollar overrun that the City of Hamilton has encountered with capital costs associated with the 40 temporary low-barrier Barton-Tiffany outdoor shelters. Within this whopping 182% overage (almost a tripling) – from a budgeted $2.8 million to an actual $7.9 million – is approximately $1 million in electrical costs for re-wiring (as the embedded wiring did not meet electrical standards) as well as extra expenses for additional heathers given our frigid Canadian winters. These are known variables. I’m not aware of any recent sweeping changes to electrical standards nor are Canadian winters just starting to make headlines for being cold. Ultimately, common sense gaffes like these are why the City of Hamilton has a budgeting problem, which leads to a spending problem, which in turn leads to a property tax problem.
Part and parcel with this accountability problem is a transparency problem as evidenced by the lack of details in explaining the cost overruns from the following categories: construction (over $4.2 million or 54%), structure (over $2.4 million or 31%), planning (just under $650,000 or 8%), design (just under $415,000 or 5%, and unit modifications (just under $240,000 or 3%). For instance, on the approximate $1 million overrun for electrical re-wiring, how much of this was for labour and how much was for materials? Details matter as do itemized expenses. But don’t worry – federal funding saves the day as it will be used to offset this overrun instead of making an even greater positive impact on homelessness in Hamilton.
Can you really blame hard-working taxpayers – who try and run fiscally responsible households – for losing faith in their municipal government? Can you imagine running a household like the City? How would that conversation go at the dinner table? “Hey honey, our utility costs have almost tripled this month, but don’t worry, we’ll use the money that we set aside for a new furnace to cover the difference because that’s related to utilities.…can you pass the potatoes, please?”
Simply put, this is unacceptable and the City needs to do better. Way better. Maybe 182% better.
