WHO AM I?

Ten days from voting day and residents of Ward 1 appear to be more focused in their scrutiny of Town Council candidates.

A number of undecided electors have sent me their own questionnaires, some asking for specifics on my financial management, budgeting and business management background.

For the record, my professional background is in purchasing and financial management with a speciality in public sector purchasing & tendering for products, services and construction, including all related insurance and risk requirements. Recently, in the private sector, my speciality includes urban forest and construction project management on behalf of numerous municipal and private sector clients.

I have written public purchasing policy and procedures for three of Ontario’s largest school boards, a hospital and a town and have taught courses in the recovery of excise tax overpayments  – drawing them back into the public treasury.

Budgeting is one of my core financial strengths and I have an intimate understanding of budgetary structures – from inception to hierarchical spending, reporting requirements and audit.

I have written reports to Boards and Councils with recommendations for acceptance or rejection of tendered bids, based on price, references and overall value. I am also no stranger to recommending a project be postponed because of unacceptable costs, prevailing economic conditions and other contributing factors.

It was my job to ensure that adequate insurances (rather than over-insurance) requirements were attached to projects so that the costs related to a specific project would not include excessively high premiums built into the contract price.  It was my responsibility to ensure that certain matters of ‘due diligence’ was exercised prior to the award of ANY tendered bid.

Ultimately, I was the designated “gate keeper” to the formal contracting and purchasing functions for the spending of millions of taxpayer dollars. So, looking for “fat” in our Town’s operating budget is a priority in representing Ajax

One of my priorities will be to review our Town’s budget for 2011 and identify items of duplication or redundancy so that we do not continue to budget for things we simply can’t afford.  Opportunities exist to review ‘single source’ vendors, spending thresholds at departmental levels, certain existing costly bureaucratic Town-wide initiatives and programs and simply, other ‘routine expenditures’ that need to be meticulously reviewed.