THUNDER BAY – Even as city council approved a plan to fill the projected hole in its 2016 budget on Monday, many councillors were already looking down the road to 2017.
City council unanimously passed a plan that will recover, save or defer $3.02 million of the municipal budget’s anticipated $3.2-million deficit by year’s end.
City manager Norm Gale’s changes to the 2016 budget include nearly $1 million savings in operations and over $2 million reduction in capital expenditures.
Gale said nearly half of capital savings is comprised of projects that came in under budget and the hiring freeze to save on personnel costs will not impact frontline services.
“I can’t say specifically what it means to the average resident but I do wish to assure residents that things like capital projects, street clearing, emergency services --there’s no change,” Gale said.
Despite voting for the plan, Coun. Paul Pugh was among a number of councillors who expressed consternation at the budget process that fell so short.
“As a council, we voted for a 2.1 per cent tax increase, which was unrealistic,” Pugh said.
“When you factor in our infrastructure commitment, that barely covers inflation.”
Inflation will stack on top of 2017’s costs as well. The tax revenue that will result from 2016 new property development will be balanced by decreasing valuations on existing properties, resulting in zero growth for the city’s tax base.
Developing the 2017 budget will be abnormally challenging, by all accounts. As a result, public consultations will begin months ahead of budget deliberations with a session on Tuesday evening at the 55 Plus Centre at 6:30 p.m.
Coun. Shelby Ch’ng delivered an impassioned speech, urging citizens to contribute their priorities to the process.
“If someone calls me and they want a zero per cent budget and they have not participated, not called me not emailed, not facebooked, not twittered, not instagrammed, not snapchatted, I don’t know what else to tell you,” she said.
