It is never very easy to get a handle on the exact cost of wages and benefits paid to supply the services Nanaimo taxpayers enjoy. For example the SOFI reports do not include benefits and neither the SOFI report or the annual financial statements include the wages and benefits paid to the RCMP officers servicing Nanaimo.
The SOFI report claims the total to be $48,950,708 while the Annual Financial Statements peg the number including benefits at $58,876,116. That is a difference of nearly $10,000,000 in the reported total cost to the Nanaimo taxpayer of the payroll at city hall. Neither of these accounting's include the total paid for wages and benefits paid to the RCMP officers employed through the Nanaimo detachment. I would make an educated guess that this number would add at least another $15,000,000 to the total reported above.
The minimum total paid for wages and benefits when RCMP wages are included would be nearly $74,000,000.00 and remember these figures are at least one year out of date.
At least 80 cents out of every property tax dollar collected by the city goes to pay wages and benefits only. It does not buy water and sewer pipe or fix pot holes.
Have you queried the financial director about this discrepancy? Your $15 million estimate for benefits is entirely reasonable.
ReplyDeleteIt is not actually a discrepancy in reporting, it is the fact that one report does not require the inclusion of benefits. As for the RCMP, the city pays the RCMP for the entire contract to provide policing. Within that amount is the wages and benefits paid to the RCMP which do not get included on the city reports as a wage item.
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