It’s time to tally council’s year-end office budgets from 2011. I went through the numbers to get a sense of what council members spent their money on, and no surprise, staffing was generally the highest cost. I put together a breakdown of how their budgets were distributed across the categories used by the city.

The definitions:

Hosp is special events, community receptions and hospitality
Donations is donations, sponsorships and memberships
Travel is city-related business travel
Comms is constituent communications and web services, including web sites, printing, mailing and advertising
External is external services, including office assistance and consulting services
Materials is materials, office supplies and related services, including office, computer supplies and facility rentals
Staff is staffing costs for the office.

One category that interests me is donations and sponsorships. It’s an interesting category because taxpayers don’t get a say on where money should be donated, although the money does largely go to worthy causes. I added up how much money council members collectively spent on the category in December, when they could see how much is left in their annual budgets and donate accordingly. The number was roughly $85,000.

On one fishing expedition I came across the food and beverage expenses for some city boards. Most meetings are catered and some have wider offerings than others. Fair to say when Mayor Jim Watson said in his 2011 budget speech that there would be a $300,000 reduction to discretionary spending, including luncheons, it didn’t mean catering would completely disappear. A lot of the time catering is provided by the cafe in City Hall. Public health also used a non-profit off-site supplier.

The usual theory for the food is meetings largely happen over the dinner hour or last through the lunch hour. (However, lunches for city council ended with Watson’s 2011 budget.)

Here are some hospitality figures from 2011, for your viewing pleasure. One board not captured here is Crime Prevention Ottawa, which also has its meetings catered by the non-profit supplier, according to a testimonial on the website.

Ottawa Police Services Board

January meeting: $150.53
February meeting: $54.00
March meeting: $149.35
(No April meeting)
May meeting: $149.95
June meeting: $149.35
July meeting: $91.24
(No August meeting)
September meeting: $157.62
October meeting: $157.62
November meeting: $165.77
December meeting: $149.35
TOTAL: $1,374.78

Ottawa Community Housing Board

January meeting: $306.81
February meeting: $225.05
March meeting (community board meeting: $324.89
April meeting: $194.87
May meeting: $194.87
June meeting: $144.12
(No July meeting)
August meeting: $200.48
September (community board meeting): $680.65
(October meeting)
November meeting: $197.91
December meeting: $200.48
TOTAL: $2,670.13

Transit commission

January special meeting: $29.97
January regular meeting: $45.66
February regular meeting: $33.73
February special meeting: $101.38
March regular meeting: $47.28
April orientation: $35.18
April regular meeting: $88.11
May regular meeting: $41.27
June regular meeting: $92.67
(No July meeting)
August regular meeting: $69.72
September regular meeting: $41.63
October regular meeting: $68.72
October special meeting: $41.63
November regular meeting: $60.56
December regular meeting: $44.32
TOTAL: $841.83

Ottawa Public Health Board

March orientation session #1: $393.93
March orientation session #2: $281.28
April regular meeting: $398.42
May regular meeting: $173.16
June strategic planning meeting: $661.31
June regular meeting: $166.79
June special meeting: $41.90
July special meeting: $166.28
August regular meeting: $146.50
August training: $118.35
September regular meeting: $125.32
October special meeting: $140.35
November regular meeting: $133.79
TOTAL: $2,947.38

Ottawa Public Library Board

January: $243.21
February: $185.80
March: $341.46
(No April amount)
May: $265.97
(No June amount)
July: $600.45
August: $25.00
September: $651.34
October: $345.83
November: $387.98
December: $1,312
TOTAL: $4,359.76

Another draft 2012 branch budget was approved today without debate. Actually, the $53.7-million gross information technology budget sailed through the IT subcommitee without a word, other than “carried.”

It’s been fairly tame on the budget front this month. There were some waves at transit commission with the students and the u-pass, and Innes Coun. Rainer Bloess tried to add $5.5 million to the OC Transpo budget, but was stopped when he didn’t have offsetting savings.

The only substantial change to the budget happened at last week’s environment committee meeting when councillors took a scalpel to the community sustainability budget.

Councillors, like Keith Egli and Allan Hubley, couldn’t wrap their heads around why community sustainability needed to spend at extra $605,000 next year. The answers weren’t satisfying, either. (Part of the budget was to be used to hire temporary staff, which, interestingly, don’t show up in the full-time equivalent staffing numbers presented in the budget).

By the end of the meeting, the committee reduced the sustainability budget by $200,000 and transferred the money to forestry for tree planting.

Truth be told, the sustainability folks knew this line of questioning was coming. Some councillors began grilling staff well before the budget discussion at committee.

So, it wasn’t really a budget reduction since the money was just transferred to another branch. It appears councillors on Nov. 30 will be fairly content with signing off on a budget with a 2.4% property tax hike, no more, no less.

Since the communications department at the City of Ottawa is often an area of scrutiny for council, let’s have a look at what staff have cooked up in the 2012 draft budget.

I can tell you that the proposed departmental budget next year is $4.6 million, an increase of $158,000 from 2011, however, the staffing level won’t change from 44 full-time equivalent positions.

So why the increase, you ask.

The bulk is for the salary hike expected to come after the city signs a new collective agreement with the union.

Then we have $80,000 for “social media enablement.” According to the budget, it’s “to enable an increased and strategic use of social media aimed at city residents and stakeholders.” Not sure why that much money is needed to manage Twitter, Facebook, etc., but that’s what it says. No further details.

Some good news: The department is expected to have a surplus of $50,000 by the end of 2011. And the department figures the big Service Ottawa program will save it from having to spend another $28,000.

And now some stats expected for 2011: Will handle more than 8,000 media calls, facilitate 2,500 interviews, dish out more than 1,000 public service announcements and press releases, photograph more than 100 events, and among other things, develop communications plans for OC Transpo’s route optimization and, as the budget document says, “Lansdown Park.”

Mayor Jim Watson wants recreation fees frozen again in 2012, keeping with his election promise from last year.

Watson said today the city’s user fees are still too high compared to other municipalities.

“Our fees are very much out of step with the rest of Ontario,” Watson said.

Watson says when the time eventually comes to increase user fees, residents won’t have to worry about a massive increase to make up for years of holding the line because the increases should only be inflationary in nature.