An effort to protect Barrie councillors from themselves, at least fiscally, couldn’t get off the floor earlier this week.
Coun. Mike McCann proposed that a staff report or memorandum be required before the presentation or adoption of any amendment or motion that would require funding of more than $30,000, except during a state of emergency and except at budget time.
“As we get further into the election year (2022), I anticipate that there’s going to be a lot more items for discussion brought forth to council,” he said Monday night. “I am anticipating, and my intuition tells me, that we have to have a little more control.
“We’re going to be lame duck in June (2022) because of the (city) election, so we’ve got a little over a year. I just thought it would be good governance to put a cap on big spending that needs a lot of processing and a lot of thought," McCann added.
But the Ward 10 councillor couldn’t get consensus on the motion’s wording and how it would work. He withdrew it in hopes it could be an item for discussion at the April 19 general committee meeting.
“I am actually very supportive of the idea… because anything we come up with as members of council should be vetted with conversation at the very least with staff… instead of all of us just checking in with staff,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman. “It actually requires that to be reported out to council, which is probably a very good idea.”
The mayor did want the words ‘staff report’ removed from the motion, however, for logistical reasons.
Staff reports "typically have a six- to eight-week pipeline and are prioritized based on the business of the corporation that has already been prioritized by council,” he said. “My fear would be… requiring a staff report for an amendment or a motion could slow things down by two or three months. It will just add that timeline to getting something brought to council.
“A memo can get thrown on in an afternoon because there’s less of an approval process," Lehman added. "It’s information being reported out to council.”
Coun. Gary Harvey did convince councillors to increase McCann original $10,000 amount to $30,000.
“Even something as simple as someone wanting to put some signs up. Next thing you know you’re talking $40,000,” Harvey said.
Michael Prowse, Barrie’s chief administrative officer, agreed.
“Ten thousand dollars in a half-a-billion-dollar organization is not a very high threshold and if council was looking for something slightly higher, I think that would give a little more latitude and therefore a little bit less work for staff to be preparing memos and potentially staff reports on the fly,” he said.
“Certainly, the lower the threshold, the more amount of paper that will have to be created," the CAO added.
“I don’t think there is a magic number,” McCann said, “and $30,000 is the highest I’d want to go. I think $30,000 is a pretty meaty number.”
Lehman argued for the state of emergency exception.
“Last summer, July 13, when we dealt with all the (waterfront) parking restrictions… we spent 43 grand,” he said. “There was no staff report or memorandum and we didn’t want to wait for one, we wanted to do that right away because it was in response to a situation to do with COVID.
“We just need to retain the ability for a few months not to have to loop back for a staff report if we’re going to deal with time-sensitive situations," the mayor added.
And not having this clause at budget time resulted in little debate.
“We’ve put motions on the table to add $40,000 to the budget to buy a bunch of radar boards that would go across all wards,” Harvey said. “The way the motion is worded could potential hinder our ability to even do that at budget time.”
McCann’s motion could be discussed April 19 as an item for discussion, the very type of motion it’s intended to control.
