I am somewhat perplexed by the position taken by Neil Godbout in his most recent editorial regarding city expenditures. Just to be clear,The Prince George Citizen represents a significant media presence. Normally, it is the media that seeks to enhance public access to information and government bureaucrats and elected officials who seek to hide the information from view. Oddly, in his criticisms of Brian Skakun's quest for more information, Mr Godbout appears to be suggesting the opposite should be true in relation to to city expenditures.
Mr Godbout asks us to question why city councillors should want to review small transactions. Perhaps we should ask him in reply why the Prince George Citizen does not share the same desire.
In further reply, Mr Godbout needs to remember that money spent by administration is public money. These administrators ought to be responsible to the public to account for the money, every penny of it. A contract for $25,000 may not be a lot of money in the public sphere, especially when the overall budget is well over 80 million, but when one adds up all the multiple small expenditures, they soon bloom into millions of dollars not subject to any meaningful public scrutiny.
It seems to me that one of the main reasons we are in financial trouble generally is because many public figures believe that they have no obligation to watch over the money spent on the small ticket items. They focus only on the money spent on the big purchases worth at millions. In many respects, this failure to watch over even the small expenditures explains why our government budgets are out of control.
Turning back to Godbout's example of 123P, he appears to overlook the possibility that a close public inspection of the expenditure could save money. Perhaps it may only save five of the 50K spent. I agree that this is not a lot of money in juxtaposition to the overall budget, but it is start. And if we can save 5K there, 5K somewhere else, perhaps we can end up saving one to two million overall. Isn't that the real purpose of wanting to review even the small stuff?
Jon Duncan
Prince George
