Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Public Sector Reform Will Be Tough



The people, not the public sector, are sovereign
- Independent of Ireland

At a time when all Canadians are feeling the effects of our current economic situation governments seem reluctant to contribute to our economic recovery.

It is not unrealistic to expect that cutbacks, layoffs and salary reductions should be shared by the public sector. Despite the belief by most taxpayers that changes are necessary, making any substantial changes to government spending seems an impossible task.

There are a couple of good examples of attempts made by governments to control their costs and give taxpayers a break. One of them is the City of St John NB and the other is the country of Ireland.

In St John city spending has been highlighted by a pension issues that has caused grief for taxpayers. You can follow the saga in the link on the sidebar.

Totten gives council what it's looking for

In Ireland the initiative to cut back government spending was as a result of several initiatives over the past few years. A major one was the benchmarking of the public sector to the private sector. The results were the start of bringing public sector benefits and wages back to the level of those in the private sector.
Ireland Public Sector Benchmark Report

The report lead to announcements this week of actual plans for controlling the cost of the public sector.
We Have No Option

Lets hope that these efforts are the start by all levels of government to control government spending and share in the pain to be felt by all taxpayers this year.

Bill Tufts

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