good job Brad

[sofa king]

i would like to tip my hat to the sask party for cutting the health regions in the province its about time we start getting rid of these high paid burecrats. We on ly have a million people here in sask I think one health board should be able to handle that. Maybe next should be amalgamation of RMs boy can I tell you stories of waste there, maybe Ill save that for another day

[bucket]

I will put money on there will be some gold plated severance packages and not all of the administration waste will be turfed. ...probably service people like nurses get a haircut....


BTW they could do the same with education administration as well.

[Rareearth]

Every one knows the difference between right and wrong.

I don't mind spending on infrastructure, it's a investment.

The problem is insecurity and accountability. People with authority feel they must study, hire, wait, gain consensus etc etc In short this typically means do nothing or little while appearing to be proactive get thing done move forward activities. They get paid to have responsibility to be the "fall guy" if bad decisions are made, ultimate accountability.

The solution is to clean house on a regular basis, keep the good, purge, etc. Potash mines call this temporary, shut down for maintenance and market conditions.

[WiltonRanch]

Too much waste in upper and middle management. Amalgamating hopefully will trim the fat. I hope the shoe falls on them before front line staff like doctors, nurses, maintenance, and housekeeping. Education is a bit trickier though. Big city schools and rural ones have different issues. Throw in infrastructure spending and special Ed issues. I think it should be amalgamated but let's not disadvantage our rural youth. RM on the other hand are largely funded by property taxes. The more economic activity in a rm means more use of infrastructure which means more money needed to keep it in good repair. It's not fair a poor rm shoulder the burden of a richer one or vice versa. Now there are some though it would help to be amalgamated. I think the waste in rm's comes from incompetence in management not from there being too many rm's.

[sumdumguy]

Maybe RM's could become volunteer positions? Only the committed would stay on. Guess I wouldn't win the popularity contest at SARM.

[Guest]

yea you bet , good on brad . Google your local health board wages under govt of sask , you'll find ceo's making 1/4 mil. in small town . maybe an accountant for education ?? what a crock of shit . time for this to be over . it's pretty crazy when ceo is making more than a doctor with 8-10 yrs education

[Guest]

Maybe RM's could become volunteer positions? Only the committed would stay on. Guess I wouldn't win the popularity contest at SARM.

I have done the rm thing . money has nothing to do with it , about $5 /hr . just finally get sick of the whining and it's always the people who have done SFA that do the most bitching . but I know what you are saying about the "lifers" that use it for a paltry income

[RD414]

So I guess Sofa and Sum must both be on council. you both seem to know what is paid. Phoned 5 RMs yesterday, average per diem is $180 per meeting, 7 on council, 16800 per year for the lot. Yes you get supervision and milage, so double it up or triple it. 50000 bucks for the year. You think anyone hired to do the job under a provincial system would do it cheaper, I doubt it. Sumdum, if you are on council and doing it for free, good on you. Suggesting someone else do it for free, well ive got 2 words for you and they involve sex and travel.

[oneoff]

Was going to pass on this subject until this last post appeared

Quote
So I guess Sofa and Sum must both be on council. you both seem to know what is paid. Phoned 5 RMs yesterday, average per diem is $180 per meeting, 7 on council, 16800 per year for the lot. Yes you get supervision and milage, so double it up or triple it. 50000 bucks for the year. You think anyone hired to do the job under a provincial system would do it cheaper, I doubt it. Sumdum, if you are on council and doing it for free, good on you. Suggesting someone else do it for free, well ive got 2 words for you and they involve sex and travel.
UNquote

$50,000 is nothing to sneeze at for a part time job. The question is if it is necessary and if all those "elected" jobs are required and if dead wood couldn't be trimmed for everyone's benefit. It never was meant as a make work project for councillors; but rather to represent the electorate; hire staff to do the work; let the administrator administer and oversee what council authorized and set as direction.

Do we need the same representation as 100 years ago? Can at least council decisions be distributed in a timely manner to ratepayers? Do monthly meetings; handling basically the same issues and correspondence have to be held every few miles in every direction; or could hundreds of wannabe $50,000 "men" be laid off with little overall effect. Really, except for those keep their jobs; next to no one shows up at any council or public meeting.....in short; no one gives a rats ass; and things could go on with a tiny fraction of good councillors having the ability to separate their civic duties from their personal interests.


Can you see it coming?

Oh shit I think it was claimed that the every whole council charged $16,000 max. You need to phone some more RM's and you'd find that all councillors cancharge that much each. And if you asked the right questions about what the RM charge card tab came to (for convention, rooms; discretionary lunch allowances, catered meals; honorariums, gifts; flowers for selected families; going away presents; retirement gifts; suppers; appreciation nights; travel (at maybe 75 cents a click so they are going to get a T4 because Revenue Canada feels 55 cents a click is completely at the high end of reasonable(tax free) and on and on. And health benefits extending into perpetuity even after resigning from council.

Oh sure nothing needs to be changed and we'll all hear the squeals about not being appreciated and only shit and abuse......but only the decent ones seem to quit.

But normally these excesses are not noticed by the general population.

[LEP]

Oneoff you are off on this. First of all I am pretty sure no one charges .75 per km. If they do it is taxable, .55 is the max non taxable rate.

Second, I doubt each councillor is charging 16k per year in most RMs. I just joined council this fall and our guys average $6,500,per diem and mileage combined. Our RM is an amalgamation of three RMs that took place in the 60's.

I would say a larger RM would save on administrator costs , but if you get too big then the cost of councillor and assistant for men would eat up the savings.

There is no way you could find two or three people to do the job of the present council for anything close to the current cost.

We are in an oil area and are dealing with oil companies regularly. Our mill rate is also one of the lowest in the province.

[TSIPP]

I vote to no more then eight RM,s with all the crappy roads and new shops it cant get much worse.

[jamesb]

As far as getting rid of the health regions, I am all for it. I'm in Sun country and have been working hard with others to try and keep a small town hospital and long term care going. A lot of local people have opened their wallets and have given money to do this. The local towns and rm are putting in money as well. The way I see it there would be no less support in our town from Regina than we currently get from Estevan or Weyburn.

[chuckChuck]

Shockingly I am going to agree with Oneoff. We don't need this many councillors and RMs to do this job. Councillors in many rms get too involved in the day to operations that can be left up to staff.

There is a lot of duplication with so many rms

There is also a problem with the local politics and conflicts of interest that are difficult to deal with in a small community where everybody is related or knows everyone. Larger rms will help deal with this.

Some of the reeves don't know how to run a meeting and don't care to learn. Some won't even provide any decent minutes or information. Many RMs have very poor communication with ratepayers and then are surprised when ratepayers are upset over some decisions.

Lets make local government more professional by going to reasonable sized rms that will provide better service.

[SASKFARMER3]

I agree we need to stream line a lot of things in Saskatchewan. The health districts didn't make sense when they created all those with its own bull shit. one has to be better.

Now RMs hell scrap that whole shit show and go to districts or counties etc. Why does Each RM around have two to three new graders which sit a lot of time. Bunch of useless councillors etc and administrators.

[bgmb]

Amen, As far as i am concerned that was one of the few good things ndp did in MB forced amalgamations except they should have used 10,000 as a minimum number not 1000