The amount Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps will save by not hiring an executive assistant is not a huge part of the city鈥檚 budget, but neither is her decision merely symbolic 鈥� the nearly $400,000 that will be saved over the next four years is real money. Perhaps there鈥檚 a lesson for all who are entrusted to handle public money.
It鈥檚 the mayor鈥檚 decision as to who is appointed as executive assistant, unlike other city hall positions, which are subject to the standard hiring process.
The post was created 12 years ago by then-mayor Alan Lowe. He realized he needed an assistant after he had been in office about six months, he told sa国际传媒 reporter Bill Cleverley in an email. The city had no communications staff at the time, and the assistant was needed to do research, help with speeches and presentations, and assist with projects from the mayor鈥檚 office. The position continued to be staffed under Helps鈥檚 predecessor, Dean Fortin.
The city now has a five-person communications department, and Helps said the mayor鈥檚 office already has two full-time employees. She says she doesn鈥檛 see the need for another person to answer phones, schedule appointments and help the mayor be organized.
According to the city鈥檚 finance director, the position was projected to cost the city nearly $100,000 a year in salary and benefits. Helps said she heard on the campaign trail concerns about affordability and the cost of living, and it was a simple decision and common sense to save some money by not appointing an executive assistant.
The amount saved? Less than five-hundreths of one per cent of the city鈥檚 $210-million annual operating budget, a minuscule figure that would not even register on a budget pie chart or bar graph.
And that is the problem with some politicians. With public budgets, it鈥檚 too easy to get caught up in proportions and lose sight of actual amounts.
When they are used to dealing with budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, a mere hundred thousand is practically invisible.
We are all vulnerable to this kind of perception. If you are eying a $600 television in one store and you learn you can get it for $300 at a store across town, you won鈥檛 hesitate to make the drive to get the cheaper TV.
But if a new car costs $35,000 at one dealership and sells for $34,700 at another dealership, most people wouldn鈥檛 bother to drive a few kilometres to save $300 on a $35,000 deal (assuming the first dealer wasn鈥檛 willing to dicker).
And yet, it鈥檚 the same $300.
The nearly $100,000 a year that will be saved by Helps鈥檚 decision might seem like a small drop in a large bucket, but it would cover the average annual salaries of two Victorians. It鈥檚 still a meaningful amount as Victoria city staff and council endeavour to constrain tax increases.
The $16 former federal cabinet minister Bev Oda paid for a glass of orange juice became a symbol for government excess, a metaphor for the sense of entitlement sometimes found among politicians who have lost touch with the real world.
Perhaps Helps鈥檚 gesture can be a symbol for the opposite approach, one in which elected officials, especially some in the sa国际传媒 legislature, strive to see how little of the taxpayers鈥� money they can spend, not how much.
