Halifax Politics dot ca

So much going on in the world, so little time, so here we go with BULLET UPDATES.

Rolling Stones in Halifax At the risk of being repetitious, I am going to be repetitious and repost what I put on halifaxlocals: “It’s good to see Regina coming into its own. This show will really put Regina on the map. It’s clear Regina is a big city with lots of potential and an exciting tourist destination. Regina really has lost its small town mentality and embraced change. Regina is a hip urban metropolis that cool young people will be thronging to! Good going Regina! (with thanks to Benniep for the extra sarcasm)

Israel/Lebanon International peacekeepers with warfighting capability seem inevitable. Either the solution or the start of Armageddon? I am not sure, I think it will work, thought the international forces will take losses. Probably this will stabilize the region, not start the last Crusade. The biggest issue though is that the IF cannot be effective just in Lebanon. The Hizzbollah attacks are because of the instability of the Palestinian situation. IF needs to police Palestine. A fully formed Palestinian state that is able to police itself, feed its people, and get on with creating a civil society would create the stabile foundation that the region needs to build a peace upon.

Pop Explosion Because Sloan is playing at the stones concert they are not able to play the McInnis Room DSU show, so we now have NO big DSU show. That pisses me off. The schedule will solidify really soon. Sponsorship is still slightly out there, we have 4 major sponsors that are uncontracted, one that has given me a dollar amount, 1 that is a slight possibility, and two that seem likely, but are hard to pin down. Even harder is the stupid government – see below.

Federal Funding The Province committed in 2.5 months. The Federal govt, in two agencies, has had pop explosion funding apps for 6 months. I am all in favor of due diligence, but because both of these programs have 1 deadline, in the early spring/late winter, by time we get approvals, it will be 6 weeks before the festival. This makes it hard to use the money properly, due to the rush nature of the project and funding. It means that either I should have applied this year for next year, or we should be in February like ECMA. Bah. Humbug.

Federal Funding II One of the funders called Music Nova Scotia to ask “why is HPX applying for this, and not you.” Gord said “because, we are too busy.” If that agency does not fund us, well… letters to MPs, media, and Ministers are likely.

I had the most depressing discussion with a friend who runs an HRM facility yesterday. His assistant manager is retiring, and when I asked why, I was told ‘He is 60… but he also does not want to be here when the building starts to fall down’

Intrigued, I asked what he meant. What he said confirmed everything anyone who follows Halifax and Nova Scotia politics knows about universities, public schools, and extends it into sports and recreation facilities. He said that they are not allowed to show a depreciation charge on a budget for a city facility.

This means that only specific maintenance and renovation expenses can be budgeted as incurred each year, but that an amount of earned revenue cannot be set aside toward the day when the facility needs major renovations or refits.

In the private sector, and in the generally accepted accounting practices, a business depreciates its capital assets. So if you own a building, you set aside 5% of the value of the building each year towards the depreciated value of the building over time. Theoretically, after 20 years you have set aside enough money to replace the building.

Now, accounting is way more complicated that this, as principle payments on a loan are not expensed on an Income Statement, but do effect cash flow and balance sheets, so while this depreciation is going in, money is going to go out, as well.

But in the public sector case, the buildings are all paid for up front, by the province, feds, and municipality, and fundraising. So if buildings are depreciated in government budgets, they are creating a maintenance and repair fund, or capital fund, to keep the building in good repair.

The bottom line for citizens is that Nova Scotia is full of perfectly good buildings, 40-100 years old, that are rotting away, because government does not maintain them. It is easier now to get millions to build new, than to get a million to renovate.

This expresses itself in sports and arts facilities (building Alderney when the Cohn remains chronically underfunded, building a new Metro Centre when 4 years ago we were talking about closing rec centres like Centennial Pool to balance the budget), hospitals (the new Infirmary cost $400 million, the VG has many empty floors awaiting renovation and renewal), and schools.

School construction is my pet peeve. How can we possibly justify tearing down schools like LeMarchant and Charles Tupper when a million dollars each would renovate them to last 15-20 years, but the new building will cost 10-15 million? The only justification is that politicians and bureaucrats like to take credit for, and cut ribbons in front of, new construction.

HRM and the Province must move to require all capital assets to be accounted for and maintained based on some percentage of replacement cost. Until we have a evaluation system that weighs the yearly maintenance, operation and renovation costs for any building against the cost of replacement, we the taxpayers will continue to throw good money after bad. And we will see buildings that, in other provinces, may have continued to serve for another hundred years torn down to be replaced with cheap, modern, cookie cutter buildings that often serve the exact same purpose as the building that was replaced.

Maybe I should update this more often. In addition to Boost Ventilator, I know Ron Foley and, get this, the good people at the World Trade and Convention Centre (you know them from the Rolling Stones concert in Halifax) are reading this blog. Shout out to all you all.

Adequately funded public schools perform as well as private schools. I wonder how Nova Scotia’s least funded in North America public school system would stack up?

Public Schools Perform Near Private Ones in Study – New York Times