A look ahead to how COVID-19 is affecting the city budget doesn't look promising.
"We're watching everything, the revenue streams, very closely," Deputy Mayor Tanya Vrebosch told BayToday. She's anticipating a loss of revenue from things like penalties and fines, parking revenues, and arena rental revenue going down.
"From the things that we know, operating revenues that we would normally have, we're projecting a $1.2 million shortfall because of COVID, and that's just till the end of June. So if this goes on longer, it's something we're watching, but we're not putting out any specific plans because you can't have a knee jerk reaction because everything is changing on a day to day basis. So we're trying to monitor and react as we go."
Vrebosch says the city can't "crystal ball" where this crisis will go in the next two to three weeks.
"The next few weeks will be critical to see how this all plays out."
Meanwhile, Global News reports that Brian Rosborough, executive director of the Association of Municipalities Ontario, has asked the province to give them enough money that they don’t have to go into the red while they fund services such as paramedics, which are more important than ever during the pandemic.
They are asking the province to commit enough cash to keep cities from going into debt amid concerns that COVID-19 will throw them into a fiscal hole so deep they can’t climb out.
“Municipalities are really going to have to be front and centre in the recovery effort, so the last thing they need is to manage this sort of operational deficit,” Rosborough said.
Provincial rules bar municipalities from budgeting deficits, but even if the rules are changed it would put municipalities in considerable debt after the crisis.
Officials are also worried that people who have lost their jobs won’t be able to pay property taxes, which in North Bay is a huge chunk of municipal revenue.
Vrebosch says 68 per cent of operating budget revenue is obtained by property tax revenue.
