Municipal Spending Evolution in Thunder Bay

 

As the 2024 municipal budget season wraps up, it is worth looking at where Thunder Bay has been going over the last decade in terms of the composition of its total municipal expenditures (all spending, tax and grant supported, capital and operating).  Using multi-year financial data (2002 to 2022) from the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs Financial Information Review, one can obtain an overview of the trends.  In 2012, total municipal expenditures in Thunder Bay were 505.4 million dollars and in 2022 they were 599.8 million making for an increase of 19 percent.  Compared to some other municipalities, this was actually a rather modest increase as over the same period, Greater-Sudbury saw an increase of 41 percent, Windsor 26 percent, Barrie 29 percent and Kingston 41 percent.  At the same time, over this entire period, Thunder Bay nevertheless still managed to have the largest municipal expenditure to GDP ratio of these cities.  

 

What is more interesting is the evolution in functional composition.  Figure 1 illustrates that in 2012, the City of Thunder Bay spent 5 percent of its budget on general government, 14 percent on protection of persons and property, 12 percent on transportation, 12 percent on the environment, 5 percent on health and emergency services, 13 percent on social and family services, 9 percent on cultural and recreation services, 2 percent on planning and development and 28 percent on "other".  This last category reflects Thunder Bay’s ownership of its municipal telecom utility (TBayTel) as well as differences in the way Thunder Bay approaches social housing given we have a district board – the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board.

 

 

 

Figure 2 presents the 2022 composition.  General government showed a decline to 4 percent, protection to persons and property rose to 21 percent, transportation remained at 12 percent as did the environment.  Meanwhile, health and emergency services grew to 7 percent, social and family services declined to 7 percent, and both recreation and culture and planning and development remained the same at 9 percent and 2 percent respectively.  Meanwhile, the "other" category's share declined to 26 percent.  

 

 

 

Of course, for the composition to change, it means that these categories have grown at different rates and so Figure 3 presents the percent change in total spending by category over the 2012 to 2022 period.  In accord with general local perceptions, the largest increases in spending have indeed been in protection services and health and emergency services at 76 and 73 percent respectively.  Next is recreation and culture at 25 percent, followed by the environment at 14 percent, planning and development at 13 percent, "other" at 12 percent and transportation at 11 percent.  There were two categories that saw declines in total spending: general government fell by 6 percent (there have indeed been some administrative economies) while social and family services fell by 32 percent.  

 

 

 

Given that social issues have been front and center in Thunder Bay over the last few years, this allocation does provide some insight into how Thunder Bay is dealing with some of its social issues.  Resource allocation appears to have targeted the more direct outcomes and fallout of the assorted social ills afflicting the streets of Thunder Bay.  This is to be expected.  What is somewhat more disturbing is that there has been an expenditure drop in family and social services which one might expect would be a longer-term spending approach to addressing some of the causes of social issues.  Whereas, in 2012, 64.4 million was being spent on family and social services, this has declined to 44 million by 2022.  

 

It is interesting to note that of the five cities mentioned at the start of this post, between 2012 and 2022, Thunder Bay saw the largest percent increases in dollars spent on protection to persons and property as well as health and emergency services.  With respect to spending on family and social services, only Barrie saw a decline while Greater-Sudbury, Windsor and Kingston all saw increases.  Windsor, Barrie, Greater-Sudbury, and Kingston also all  increases in social housing spending (though Greater-Sudbury's was quite small). However,  in the case of Thunder Bay it is difficult to tell from these numbers if we are indeed spending more in social housing in the "other" category.  Ultimately, such differences across urban centers will provide an interesting laboratory experiment on how municipalities are dealing with issues like poverty, addiction and crime.

Reforming Thunder Bay City Council

 

This evening’s Thunder Bay city council meeting is going to feature yet another scintillating debate on the size and composition of City Council.  This is another one of those Thunder Bay issues that has gone on for decades and rears its head usually as a vehicle for individual councilors to garner media attention and sell themselves as either reform minded or committed to safeguarding taxpayer dollars. In the end, the talk is as circular as the yet to be fully opened new roundabout at the intersection of Redwood and Edward.

 

 In this current iteration, councilor Peng You has put forward a notice of motion to reverse a decision made nearly a year ago to start work in 2023 reviewing municipal representation and council composition with an aim for a new system – if accepted - to be implemented for the 2026 municipal election.  If this decision is reversed by a two-thirds majority of council, then council would also be asked to consider a potential plebiscite question on the 2022 municipal ballot.  What exactly that question should be would no doubt then consume hours of debate.

 

To start, one suspects the motion will fall flat quickly. Most councilors are quite happy with the status quo of 12 councilors plus a mayor with 7 ward councilors and 5 at-large councilors.  After all, it has gotten them where they currently sit, and a smaller council will mean more competition for the remaining spots.  However, even a defeat of Councillor You’s motion will be useful to him as he will then be able to complain that his desire to save taxpayers money by advocating for a council of 8 at-large councilors plus one mayor has been thwarted by spendthrifts resistant to change – a useful mantra when one has plans for running for higher office.

 

The problem is that changing the system of municipal representation in Thunder Bay – an institutional compromise devised nearly 50 years ago to balance the north-south population division of the city – needs to be done thoughtfully. It is true that there are more councilors per capita in Thunder Bay than is the case in quite a few other cities.  At the same time, that is what happens when you devise a hybrid model of representation to combine ward specific interests with at large viewpoints designed to represent the whole.  Simply reducing the number of councilors is not going to save a meaningful sum of money – the total cost of all the councilors in terms of their stipends and expenses is currently well under one million dollars on an operating budget close to $200 million – under one half of one percent. Indeed, one can even make the case that they should use the meager savings from reducing the size of council to pay the remainder more to attract a better quality of candidate – which in the end really would not save any money on representation though it might lead to better civic decision making in the long run.

 

And then there is the issue of representation.  Should we have only at-large councilors who could all end up being from more affluent parts of the city as can sometimes be the case?  If we go to a smaller council, can we ensure that it will make better decisions or will the reduction in representation simply reduce the number of viewpoints. And then there is the fundamental issue of at-large or ward representation.  If we go totally to ward representation, what will the boundaries of a new ward system be?  Can we design some north-south ward boundaries given the geographic population distribution which still resembles that of 50 years ago? 

 

The case decades ago for at-large councilors was that in the wake of amalgamation and the Fort William-Port Arthur split, having purely ward representation would lead to parochial decision making and deadlock.  However, fifty years after amalgamation, is that division still as important in how municipal politicians approach issues? Surely, ward councilors can be just as capable as at-large councilors of taking the entire city’s interests into mind.  And then, it remains that much of what the city does is local service provision and ward councilors are the best located as the focal points of concerns in specific neighborhoods rather than at-large politicians using their councilor positions to prepare for higher office.

 

In the end, the councilors should leave the issue as it was decided a year ago and let the city clerk’s office review the boundaries of wards and provide options for composition of City Council.  Better yet, given that city administration ultimately has an interest in the design of any council, it would be better if more of an effort was  made to commission an independent arm’s length panel to review the situation and present options to council.  Whatever happens, one can rest assured that there is not going to be any radical changes in the size and composition of council decided by council and city administration as it is akin to asking predatory foxes to provide policy on the hen house. Any radical institutional change will occur as it did prior to amalgamation in 1970 – by provincial fiat or decree. Quite frankly, I don’t think the province is interested this time around.