Council reviews variety of options

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This article was published 21/01/2012 (5371 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon city budget debate is back at Square 1, after a Friday meeting of city councillors decided to debate whether to cut the proposed $76.7-million operating budget at a special meeting on Feb. 7.

One of the cost-cutting proposals would mean a zero per cent mill rate increase, but would keep the money gained by increasing assessment rates, which would slash $2.05 million from the proposed budget. In 2011, the mill rate was 19.969, and the interim budget as presented to council on Dec. 19 has an increased mill rate of 21.023.

Another proposal cuts $3 million and results in an approximate mill rate of between 19.4 and 19.5 mills. That option would still mean a tax increase as well, because of the increase in property assessments in provincially-mandated reviews of property values.

These proposals do not mean the proposed $76.7-million operating budget is dead. However, city administration provided councillors with examples of potential cuts how they will affect programs, future planning and services.

“I feel we are at the crossroads,” Mayor Shari Decter Hirst said. “This was always pitched as a catch-up budget, that we needed to address outstanding obligations in terms of payroll, some of the ongoing projects that have been delayed in order to make prior years tax cuts more palatable. We needed to get to a better spot going forward. This was never intended to be ongoing where every year we would be dealing with increases like this.”

Decter Hirst said she did not anticipate an “easier economic time next year.”

For discussion purposes, the city released charts outlining examples on where cuts could be made to achieve either spending reduction objective.

For example, salary cuts could include a reduction on overtime budgets. Public impact spending could include the cancellation of a 2017 Canada Summer Games bid, deferrals of projects such as service upgrades to the planning department, snow removal, allocations to reserve funds for dikes and flood mitigation, reduced spending for police department equipment and cuts to cemetery security spending.

Cuts associated to the “pay now or pay later” category could include affordable housing initiatives, deferring spending on recreation such as the Rideau Park renewal, cuts on maintenance spending and putting off the construction of the North Hill Dog Park.

Internal spending cuts could impact spending for training, professional development, conferences and travel, as well as advertising and subscriptions.

Decter Hirst said approval of the budget without cuts will mean the Canada Summer Games bid will remain a possibility. However, the bid would be scrapped if there were cuts to the city budget, Decter Hirst said.

City staff determined that to cut $2.05 million it would have to cut $712,116 from salaries, $655,590 in public impact spending, $502,000 from items labelled pay now or pay later, and $235,489 from items that would have an internal impact on city government operations.

To achieve $3 million in cuts, the city will need to reduce salary costs by $845,616, public impact spending by $779,758, pay now or pay later expenses by $1,037,616, and internal impact costs by $342,199.

Coun. Shawn Berry (Linden Lanes) said the discussion was useful, but was not enough to sway him to vote for the budget he initially opposed.

“I’m glad to see they are at least looking at this,” Berry said. “Nothing was set in stone, but this gives options for people to consider and take a look at. Whether they are comfortable with those options, we’ll have to wait and see. My position on the budget has not changed. Even if they make these changes, I will not be supporting this budget. It’s still too high.”

Berry said there were still areas of the budget he would like to have re-examined, and that some of the proposed cuts were ones he could not support.

“What we need to do now is review the budget ourselves to see if there aren’t areas where we can adjust it,” Coun. Stephen Montague (Richmond) said. “Everything is on the table. It has to be.”

Montague said even with a zero per cent mill rate increase, the tax increase is more than 10 per cent overall.

“My ward is one in the city that is hit virtually the hardest with all of the new development we are seeing,” Montague said. “I have not had a single resident come up to me and support this budget. The 15 per cent increase is translating to 25 per cent to my taxpayers. If we cut it by a third, we still get 17 per cent in my ward. That’s still a large one-year increase.”

Decter Hirst defended the current interim budget, stating the two cost-cutting scenarios would only take a few dollars off city tax bills.

Citing a graph released by the city, Decter Hirst said tax bills on properties with an assessed value of $200,000 will increase $280.32 per year, $23.36 per month, based on the average tax increase of 15.6 per cent. Cutting $2.05 million from the city budget means a tax increase of 9.8 per cent or $176.13 per year, $14.68 per month. A $3-million reduction means a 7.1 per cent increase where homeowners pay $127.78 more per year, $10.65 more per month.

Coun. Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) said the discussion showed councillors listened to their electorate by revisiting the budget.

“We have listened to citizens in a serious way over the past two weeks to reduce the mill rate and I think we have achieved a substantial mill rate decrease,” Chaboyer said. “At the same time, we realized we did not want to cut services and we have not made substantial cuts to services.”

City manager Scott Hildebrand said in a press release that none of the city budget options will result in cuts to the civic workforce.

The official starting point for the budget do-over comes Monday when a notice of motion is presented to city council at their regular 7:30 p.m. meeting. No debate will take place on Monday.

“We have always encouraged people to be in touch with their mayor and council,” Decter Hirst said. “Continue to call, stop us on the street and let us know. It’s important to get that kind of feedback.”

Members of the public may attend the special council meeting on Feb. 7, where councillors will reopen the budget debate and discuss the options before them. But the debate will be for councillors only as the official public consultation will likely take place in March.

» kborkowsky@brandonsun.com