While municipal consolidations can lead to cost increases as we discussed last week, they also provide the ideal catalyst (if managed properly) to restructure local service delivery to save massive property tax dollars.

Indeed, the "special advisors" for Ottawa-Carleton, Hamilton-Wentworth, Haldimand-Norfolkd and Sudbury that will be appointed next week must keep alternate service delivery methods in the forefront as they attempt to redraw the municipal map.

Skeptics will say that many Ontario municipalities already engage in a significant amount of non-core service tendering activity. But the problem is twofold. First, defining what is core and non-core is still a very myopic exercise for most municipalities. And second, tenders are too prescriptive and don't foster full innovation or creativity in municipal service delivery.

When I was in the private sector we used to argue that you could contract out everything except elected representation. And if one looks at the Senate, it seems that our Prime Minister may have solved this issue - in a manner of speaking.

Municipalities have a responsibility to ensure that services are delivered, this does not mean that they must actually deliver the services. Private companies, community agencies or employee takeover corporations are often better equipped to service the community.

Here is just a sample of areas where alternate service delivery could be employed:

 

• Public parks and recreation
   
• Local road repair
   
• Traffic signals and maintenance
   
• Waste management (garbage, recycling, toxic chemicals)
   
• Public cemeteries and cremation
   
• Parking (meters, off-street and enforcement)
   
• Ambulance service and dispatch
   
• Information technology support
   
• Local licensing and permits
   
• Fees and tax collection
   
• Warehousing and supplies
   
• Public transportation
   
• Payroll processing
   
• Social assistance benefits
   
• Public housing stock
   
• Facilities management
   
• Vehicle fleet management
   
• Hydro services
   
• Economic development, and the list goes on.

The bulk of your property tax bill does not go to support various city halls and councilors, it goes to hard and soft municipal services.

By engaging new service providers in flexible contractual arrangements as opposed to restrictive and prescriptive tenders, real savings can accrue to taxpayers. Unfortunately, too few municipal leaders have embraced this kind of innovative thinking.

Therefore, municipal restructuring should be used as the catalyst for new models of service delivery. If the special advisors focus on how services are to be best delivered in varying degrees by public and private providers, the new governance arrangements (How many cities How many councilors ) will become as self-evident as the property tax savings to be realized by taxpayers.