At the end of March, the Town of Orangeville was keeping close to its 2007 budget, with operating and capital expenditures coming close to or just under the 25 per cent target.

However, town treasurer Wayne Church told the Citizens' Commission on Finance, which met Monday evening to review the first-quarter results, that it's too early to tell where the Town will be at the end of the year. Even though everything is in line right now, he said there hasn't been much going on as a lot of the capital projects and other work will take place over the summer months.

Mr. Church said his goal is to eventually have a monthly budget so he could see how the Town's finances are doing throughout the year instead of just at the end of the year. He said having a quarterly update isn't the best way of keeping track of a budget.

The five commission members present (out of 13 eligible to attend) didn't have much to say on the current statistics, but did offer a few more recommendations on how the Town could save money.

Tom Sudak suggested the Town take a "calendarization" approach so unless a department has an unexpected extreme expense the Town could look at trends and know what to expect. He said this would be more helpful than the quarterly updates. The treasurer agreed, saying that is his goal.

Councillor Sylvia Bradley, who chairs the committee, told members that during the previous council meeting she made two motions regarding the budget. Those were to have staff prepare a plan to ensure there is no deficit for 2007 and to incorporate reviews at various times and to have staff prepare a draft budget before the end of the year.

Mr. Church said it's difficult to ensure there won't be a deficit "when the Town has a budget that is low in fat." Having a full budget prepared by the year end wouldn't be feasible as he would need to wait for final numbers. However, he said he would try to have as much of it prepared as possible. He noted that in small municipalities budgets are usually prepared in the fall.

Murray Parsons said that since the town has a new council, its members should be directing staff to move away from the traditional budget process, where staff is left scrambling to produce numbers in several weeks, and instead have a budget prepared for the start of January to avoid the last-minute hustle and rushed discussions.

The treasurer asked members how they thought the process, from the committee's stand point, could be improved.

Mr. Parsons said his biggest complaint with the process is how little time committee members had to review the budget and ask questions. He said he thought he had understood the role of the committee but wondered if council was just using the committee to get a sense of how the community has a whole feels on certain issues.

Mr. Sudak said that instead of having every member go through each department line by line the members should be broken into groups and divide the departments accordingly.

Chair Bradley said she thinks Mr. Parsons' understanding of the committee's role is right as it was a new council and their first task was to prepare a budget. She said the recommendations coming

from the committee gave council more confidence to move ahead on certain issues.

She said even though not all 32 recommendations were adopted right away, more may be implemented in the future. Some of the recommendations would take more investigation and work.

One recommendation that wasn't implemented immediately was to increase transit fares, currently $2 for adults and $1.50 for seniors and students. The recommendation was presented to the transit committee for comments and it has agreed to raise fares in September.

The citizens' committee received a bad rap from the press, she said, with comments such as that council could be coming up with the same ideas on their own.

"The committee came up with some unique ideas council wouldn't have come up with," she said.

Mr. Sudak said he would like to see department managers rate services on a level of importance so that if something needs to be cut from the budget council would have a place to start from. He also said the Town should adhere to a standard level of services to prevent staff from doing more work than is required, which would help keep the budget under control.

Chair Bradley said she knows the Town has set standards, but projects are not prioritized.

Hans Muntz, who has a background in public works, said the Town should implement a purchase order system where pre-approval is required before a big purchase is made to prevent over-spending. He said activity-based budgeting needs to become decisionbased since control is lost if figures aren't added in when decisions are made.

The treasurer said the Town does have a purchase order system, which is guided by the budget, but advance approval is not required.

Bruce Taylor said people have to remember the Town isn't a large organization like Peel Region or Daimler Chrysler. Orangeville didn't have enough staff to implement this type of system, so it came down to managers knowing the budget and being held responsible for it.

Mr. Sudak would like to see a comparison between Orangeville and municipalities with a similar population.

If the Town wasn't comparing itself to others, how would people know how well or how poorly residents were being served. Noting this could also give staff members ideas on how to save money and increase revenue, he suggested the committee could take on this task.

When Chair Bradley asked him if we would like to pursue the idea himself and bring a report back to the meeting, he agreed to do so.

Alex Martin suggested that the town should employ summer students to reduce the shortage of manpower over the summer period. As well, he said the Town could look into using young offenders who are ordered to perform community services to clean up messes they create around town, whether it's vandalism or breaking various items.

Mr. Church said that would certainly save money, but there could be difficulties when it comes to insurance.

The committee will meet again to review the budget after the second quarter results are available.