# Budget & City Operations: Work to Date Andrii is already reviewing City spending, debt, staffing, management structure, and service delivery. This page records the work completed so far: turning public records into a reviewable baseline, identifying specific questions, and testing lower-cost ways to deliver services while protecting safety, access, dignity, and useful public results. ## What I have reviewed ### Operating and capital budgets I organized the City's 2026 operating budget and 2027-2031 capital plan into searchable tables and review registers: - The 2026 budget shows `$38,133,221` raised from existing residents, `$41,180,443` in net expenses, and `$3,681,731` in tax-supported capital. - The 2027-2031 capital plan contains 218 project rows totaling `$69,476,550`. - The detailed operating PDF was expanded into 680 line items across 47 table pages, including wages, materials, contracts, revenues, reserves, and internal allocations. - The capital review records project amounts, funding sources, departments, locations where available, and questions about scope, timing, alternatives, and operating impact. Every operating line remains subject to zero-based review. The review asks what result each cost purchases, who uses it, what duties or commitments apply, whether the full cost is visible, and whether a simpler or lower-cost method could deliver the same result. Supporting work: [budget and capital review](README.md), [public savings findings](public-savings-findings.md), [capital project screen](capital-project-screen.csv), and [detailed operating line items](../owen-sound-municipal-reading-list/budget/2026-budget-line-items.csv). ### Debt and rate transparency I followed the City's 2025 Year End Report to Appendix E: Outstanding Debt Balances and recorded the newer September 14, 2026 2025 LTD Payment Schedule. The newer schedule shows: - `$29,225,279.63` in total listed debt; - `$812,616.95` in internally sourced debt; - `$28,412,662.68` in external debt; and - `$3,861,358.86` in annual debt payments. About `$16.99 million` of the clearly identified balances appears connected to water and wastewater infrastructure. Since the City describes water and wastewater as user-fee-supported services, the next essential step is to show which principal and interest payments are supported by water and wastewater rates, property taxes, or other revenues. My [published debt analysis](https://helpos.ca/c/owen-sound-council/8659/update-on-owen-sounds-286-million-external-debt) asks for the interest rates, principal-and-interest breakdown, funding source, maturity, and debt balance required by the City's Debt Management Policy. That information would give residents a much clearer picture of the actual property tax burden. The schedule contains no official interest-rate or principal/interest split and leaves funding sources unresolved. A [machine-readable debt schedule](debt-schedule-2025-12-31-derived.csv) records the reported values and a separate level-payment screening estimate. The estimate implies approximately `$883,641` of interest and `$2,191,699` of principal across the visible external annual payments, subject to confirmation from the City's debt register and loan agreements. ### Staffing and organization I converted the City's 543-page 2026 organizational work plan, the separate Police Services organizational chart, salary disclosure records, elected compensation records, and the Library workforce baseline into visual current and goal organization charts. The current working register shows 194 City seats and 22 Library seats, with Police represented as a separate Police Services Board branch. Public salary records are matched where the role and employer are clear. Unknown or mixed values remain identified as gaps, while rounded budget-residual ranges make the chart easier to read without presenting unsupported exact employee salaries. The comparison gives residents a common picture of reporting layers, frontline functions, management roles, elected governance, and missing information. The next review is bottom-up: start with the work residents need, clarify each handoff and responsibility, then use vacancies, attrition, redeployment, and future hiring decisions as the orderly path to a simpler structure. See the [organization chart methodology](../organization-simplification/current-organization-chart.md), [current per-seat chart](../organization-simplification/current-organization-per-seat.svg), and [staffing savings review](../organization-simplification/staffing-savings-review.md). ### Software and digital value-for-money The 2026 budget identifies `$696,756` in Systems Specialist Software Maintenance Fees, up from `$492,371` in 2024. Public records identify systems including Dynamics Great Plains, WorkTech, CityWide, AMANDA, PerfectMind, FirePro, Aladtec, ArcGIS, Microsoft 365, eScribe, Stone Orchard, Cloudpermit, EUNA, and a project-management system. I documented the contracts and public amounts that can be identified today: - EUNA budgeting software: `$325,292.46` over five years, including HST; - project-management system: `$178,049.47` upset limit, including HST; - StoneShare/Gimmal records management: `$42,000` annual cost identified in the 2019 award; - Cloudpermit: a `$250,000` planning project listed in current work-plan material; and - future software projects for HRIS, mobile technology and asset management totaling `$411,350` in the capital summary. The [software-cost breakdown](software-cost-breakdown.md) records the evidence gap behind the overall maintenance line. The [published software-cost article](stopping-owen-sounds-growing-software-costs.md) sets out the case for a vendor ledger, careful migration, locally controlled infrastructure, and open-source municipal modules where they deliver the required function. ### Service value and alternatives I separated broad budget lines into specific services and compared public use, cost, and available alternatives. Examples include: - the 2023 Gallery, Visitor Services, and Library attendance measures; - approximate cost per recorded use using clearly stated accounting bases; - the `$500,000` shared Gallery/Tourism/Library customer-service entrance project; - two resident-survey projects totaling `$50,000`; and - the nine City Manager capital projects totaling `$290,000`, including `$190,000` of levy and reserve exposure. These are review candidates. Their amounts are public-resource commitments, while any saving depends on scope, service effects, contracts, implementation, and the cost of a responsible alternative. ## What the work demonstrates This work puts the campaign's three principles into practice: - **Transparency:** publish the source amounts, assumptions, missing records, and the difference between a budget line, a review candidate, and a verified saving. - **Participation:** give residents accessible information so they can point out duplication, recurring problems, lower-cost suppliers, repair options, and services worth protecting. - **Compassion:** pursue efficiency while preserving essential services, safety, access, dignity, and the conditions people need to build stable lives. The review has identified a large number of places where value-for-money work should begin. The current Verified Savings Ledger records `$0` in realized recurring savings because proposed changes have not yet been implemented and measured. That distinction keeps the public claim accurate while making the next actions concrete. ## What comes next The most useful records to obtain are: 1. A machine-readable vendor and application ledger showing invoices, licences, support, hosting, renewals, users, contracts, and departmental allocations. 2. A complete position and vacancy register showing employer cost, workload, scheduled hours, service standards, and reporting lines. 3. A debt schedule showing principal, interest, maturity, and funding source for each instrument and service. 4. Business cases and lifecycle costs for capital projects, including lower-cost alternatives and future operating costs. With those records, the City can publish a Software Cost Ledger, a complete service-level budget, a transparent debt picture, and a Verified Savings Ledger that shows the former cost, replacement cost, service result, and recurring net effect for every completed change. ## Related platform work - [Open Government and Fiscal Transparency](https://helpos.ca/mayor/transparency) - [Tax and Value-for-Money Plan](https://helpos.ca/mayor/tax) - [Strong Mayor Powers](https://helpos.ca/mayor/strong-mayor-powers) - [Participation and Local Capacity](https://helpos.ca/mayor/participation) - [Main mayoral platform](https://helpos.ca/mayor/platform)