Originally Posted by
kertejud2
The CBE capital budget isn't really economics driven, it's service driven. As much as it would make economic sense to not build new schools right now, not having adequate space for education of children is one of those things people get all antsy about. Most of the budget is in building new schools, that doesn't reduce operations cost. There are incompetent people responsible, but they're generally the sprawl-friendly councilors who have encouraged inefficient building to provide service. They could upgrade schools to handle the new students, but then they need to spend money getting students to the schools which will also increase operating costs (I can't imagine they'd get Ministerial approval to scrap service standards to allow the passing of those costs completely to parents).
But regardless, all these changes are for 2020-23 Capital Plans to try and save money for a budget made in 2019. It literally isn't something they can do to avoid cutting operating costs this year. That's why I singled it out. It isn't responsible, it's not possible. I was also going to point out that cutting maintenance costs isn't responsible either, it's what a manager who plans on leaving in a few years does because they know they won't have to deal with the results. But telling somebody in the middle of their budget they can review their future capital plan to save costs for this budget cycle is just the sign that somebody who doesn't have a clue of what's going on is trying to give them advice.
Yeah, letting people go via attrition is something that never happens in the private or public sector when there's a budget crunch.