THUNDER BAY — Months after city council blindly ordered millions in budget cuts for 2024, the public is getting its first look at how that decision could impact city services and fees.
Among the cuts recommended to reach council’s $1.5 million service reduction target are the elimination of bus routes serving Neebing and Fort William First Nation, the closure of the Neebing Arena and most outdoor rinks, and the shuttering of a Current River EMS station.
Those larger cuts are accompanied by dozens of smaller ones that would gut services like the playgrounds program and EcoSuperior initiatives, as well as recommended service fee increases.
Those reductions, mostly recommended for 2024, come on top of $700,000 in staffing cuts council directed city manager Norm Gale to carry out by June 30 of this year, details of which remain cloudy.
All told, achieving those savings would see the city cut dozens of staff across multiple departments, including in transit and recreation, adding up to just over 20 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
The cuts respond to financial pressures facing the city, as well as council's decision to approve millions in new police spending in recent years, including an expansion of over 20 FTEs for the Thunder Bay Police Service in 2023.
City staff have previously warned increases to emergency services spending, particularly police, are unsustainable and will compromise the city's ability to deliver other services like recreation and parks.
In an interview Friday, city manager Norm Gale argued the city’s deep fiscal challenges ultimately stem from a “broken” provincial funding formula.
“This is all wrapped around a basic context in that the municipal funding regimen is fundamentally broken,” he said. “There needs to be change in how municipalities collect revenue and what services municipalities deliver, and that is the root.”
The proposed cuts would not reduce spending on emergency services, infrastructure, roads and sidewalks, or winter snow-clearing, Gale added, but said those may need to be considered in the future without structural changes to municipal funding and service delivery
“There’s going to be less access to services, and council is in a very difficult position in trying to find ways to reduce the budget,” he said.
City council will receive the budget cut recommendations at a meeting on Monday. A report outlining the recommendations and a list of proposed cuts were released on Thursday.
The 28 recommendations include:
- Cutting the 4-Neebing and 6-Mission bus routes ($294,000 in estimated savings)
- Cutting Christmas and New Year’s Day transit and LIFT+ service ($85,000)
- Closing the Neebing Arena ($180,000)
- Closing 31 outdoor rink sites ($365,000)
- Ending maintenance of 13 parkettes ($25,000)
- Reducing the playgrounds program to six sites ($22,400)
- Cuts to EcoSuperior programs ($18,000)
- Ending the sister cities program ($25,000)
- Eliminating events fireworks ($12,000)
- Cutting the Beck Street EMS station ($25,000)
- Reducing evening hours at Widnall and Heath outdoor pools ($5,500)
The Neebing and Mission bus routes are the "lowest-performing" in the transit system, averaging around five or six riders per hour.
City administration did not reach out to Fort William First Nation before recommending the elimination of bus service to the community, Gale acknowledged.
While the recommendations are likely to raise community concerns — and have already prompted vocal opposition from the city’s largest union — Gale said more cuts could be in store next year.
“In order to get a tax levy increase below five per cent, as it stands today, we will need to find millions more in savings and reductions this fall,” he said.
In a report, city staff suggested they will also consider new sources of revenue, like introducing development charges and raising most user fees by at least five per cent next year.
Deryk Fournier, president of CUPE Local 87, the city’s largest bargaining group representing over 800 workers, said the cuts will results in job losses for union members, but called low-income families and children the biggest victims.
“I’m most concerned about those things that impact the kids — you know, the cuts keep coming for those disadvantaged youth,” he said. “At a time when inflation and the cost of living is so high, we need to be helping out families and not making cuts where it hurts them.”
The union is planning to gather at city hall at 4:30 p.m. on Monday to signal its opposition to the proposed cuts.
Fournier added the union feels cuts could instead be made at the management level.
“I’m concerned there’s been a failure to look within the organization to find this money,” he said. “I think we do need to look at other alternatives. There’s inflated management, there’s more directors and supervisors than we’ve seen, ever.”
In a statement, the city said the recommended staffing cuts do include management positions.
The city says it had 166 management positions as of December 2022, compared to 153 in 2016, but added that number has fluctuated over the years. Those positions range from general manager to supervisor.
Whether council will stick with its determination to cut after seeing the recommendations remains uncertain — the motion to find the cuts in 2024 passed by just one vote when debated in January.
“Council has off-ramps,” said Gale, who had recommended against the cuts. “They don’t have to accept this recommendation … They could send us away and bring back other recommendations.
“If that’s the case, the other recommendations will be less palatable than these recommendations. Every time we do this, we bring what we think is the most appropriate and most palatable of a list of bad things.”
Council already approved other cuts in January, axing bus service to Chippewa Park and scaling back evening hours at city pools, a taxi scrip program for LIFT+ users, and waterfront security.
