The millions of taxpayer dollars already sunk into B.C.’s Auditor General for Local Government soap opera is but the latest example of questionable public-sector expenditures.
Ongoing costs elsewhere dwarf that BC Liberal government mess.
For example, the long-standing gap between public- and private-sector wages and benefits has yet to be addressed in any meaningful way.
The latest organization to weigh in on the issue is the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). According to its March 23 Wage Watch report, private-sector workers are paid up to $8,500 less per year and work up to six hours more per week than employees doing the same job for the government. Factoring in salaries, working hours and benefits, the CFIB report estimates that the average government worker gets between 18% and 37% more than his or her private-sector counterpart.
The CFIB report follows the release in January of Fraser Institute studies calculating that government employees in Alberta and B.C. are paid 6.9% and 6.7% more, respectively, than comparable workers in the private sector.
The institute’s findings came under immediate fire from the Canadian Union of Public Employees as an attack on reasonable wages for workers and another example of the institute’s “‘greed is good’ vision.”
But the impact of public- and private-sector wage disparities goes far beyond political gamesmanship. As the CFIB pointed out, were government workers in Canada paid the same as their private-sector counterparts, taxpayers would save $20 billion annually.
The dismissal of B.C.’s first Auditor General for Local Government, meanwhile, underscores how questionable execution can derail good intentions aimed at ensuring taxpayers get good value from government budget decisions.
B.C. needs the fiscal resources to attract talent to staff a properly compensated public service, but not at the expense of taxpayer-funded budgets that ignore marketplace realities.
