Our municipal governments have the difficult task of balancing short-term needs with long-term thinking.
Too often the long-term thinking gets overwhelmed.
In 2008 the Cowichan Valley Regional District held a referendum to establish a parkland acquisition fund, so when land becomes available there would be money to buy it for parks. That referendum was remarkably popular, passing with more than 70 per cent approval.
Yet the full yearly requisition for that fund has never been collected.
You see, the parkland acquisition fund has become a go-to when directors want to reduce the CVRD budget for the year. The fund is seen as something that can be reduced or cut, where people won't immediately feel it. Key word: immediately.
There are consequences to not putting that money away, but the discussion is not had about whether future parks are a necessary or desirable sacrifice. Nobody has to actually make that decision if we keep pretending that the fund is up and running as it should be. Perhaps in these days of ballooning costs we no longer want to be spending money on new parks, but that's something we should address head on, if so, not in a death by a thousand cuts.
There will never be a good time to squirrel money away for things people cannot immediately see. There will always be pressure to instead lower taxes, or spend the money on something else. But when we don't save, when we don't think past this year's tax bill, we wind up in dire straits, and the parkland fund is not the only example.
Our current problem with aging infrastructure is a lesson on what happens when we do not plan and save for the future in favour of trying to keep tax bills low in the short term.
Putting off the financial pain doesn't make it go away, it just postpones it (possibly until different people are in office to take the blame).
Both North Cowichan and Duncan have gotten the bad news explicitly in recent years that they have a lot of things like sewer and water pipes, sidewalks, roads, recreation facilities, fire trucks, garbage trucks and more that are nearing or at the end of their lifespans. To the tune of billions of dollars. Any savings that have been put away are not nearly enough to address the sheer scope of the repairs and replacements necessary.
The putting off till tomorrow is coming home to roost. And it couldn't be at a worse time, when money is tight for a lot of people. Are we going to just continue to kick the can down the road? Can we, even?
What is clear is that we need to start putting together financial plans with savings for these future costs in mind.
