Newly independent councillor Jean Coupal plans to ask about wasteful spending at every city council meeting until the next election. Last night was no exception.
“It’s not about the mayor and the administration, it’s more about the city administration,” he said. “The mayor doesn’t challenge whether city employees have real needs when they propose projects. He just gives them what they want.”
This tendency led to Laval’s 2016 budget being too high, says Coupal, who was elected with Movement Lavoillois to represent District 12 Souvenir-Labelle in November 2013 and has been a member since 2011.
By leaving Demer’s party prior to the end of 2015, he gets access to a $27,000 research budget for councillors that would have otherwise gone to the party. He plans to use these funds to hire students to compare Laval to other cities.
“Cities on the North Shore didn’t increase taxes at all,” he said. “In Mirabel, there was no tax increase for three years. It makes no sense. Last year, two big amounts decreased. Law 15 dropped the retirement regime and Laval saved $12.3 million and the interest rates went down and Laval saved $8 million. We don’t control that, but instead of giving these amounts back to citizens, they just spent it all. In my district, I have a lot of seniors and the Government of Canada increased their pension by only 1.2% and we’ve increased taxes by 1.9% so these seniors are going to have cut somewhere.”
Coupal says that Laval should reduce expenses by eliminating automatic budget increases for manager salaries, limiting police overtime and forcing bureaucrats to release clear limited tenders.
As an IT specialist for 25 years, he was particularly shocked by a $300,000 information technology (IT) contract approved last year.
“I know exactly the work that needs to be done because I’ve done it myself,” he said. “The guy who is doing the work is getting $55 an hour and the rest of the money is going to the United States…The criteria was so complicated that there was only one company who could get that job.”
Coupal has been concerned about city spending since long before he got elected. In 2009, he was featured in a Suburban story about the distribution of Vivre en Laval in English. (See: http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?eid=de522198-92c0-4a09-9908-8ba6bcfb4b37&pnum=88&from=search&terms=Jean%20Coupal&searchPage=1.)
“Oh, I remember that,” he said. “I was saying that I don’t need two copies because I’m receiving one in French and another in English. Everyone in Chomeday got one automatically, but someone in St. Francois couldn’t get one. Now, everyone who wants an English version can get it regardless of where they live. I’ll have to ask how many have been distributed.”
Coupal says he’s been asking pointed questions about spending behind closed doors since prior to his election. As an independent councillor, now he’ll ask them in public.
