Deputy Mayor and budget chief Sheldon Forgette looks on as fellow city politicians discuss the proposed 5.88 per cent tax levy increase during Friday morning's General Government Committee meeting. PHOTO BY LIAM BERTI
The old adage of “if you spend too much time thinking about it, you’ll never get it done,” is starting to apply to the city budgeting process.
Deputy mayor and budget chief Sheldon Forgette heightened the sense of urgency during Friday morning’s General Government Business Unit Review, where he told his fellow politicians that now is the time to bring their budget ideas forward.
With the proposed tax levy hike coming in at 5.88 per cent, city council is in the midst of budget deliberations, most of which revolve around finding efficiencies and lowering that increase to a more tolerable level.
Forgette, though, is supportive of an increase over five per cent and said he campaigned in the first place because he wanted to promote growth in the city.
“My generation is leaving the city for opportunities elsewhere, and frankly I think it’s because, as politicians, we are too afraid to increase taxes, too afraid to invest in our city, too afraid to raise the economic development budget to compete,” he said to the group.
“I think if we come out with a low budget or budgets that are cutting, we are cutting our community, not building it,” he added.
But for those who were not in support of the direction put forward by Forgette, the message was loud and clear: ideas had better come forward fast.
Forgette opened the discussion by urging those around the table who propose a lower increase to step forward and recommend an actual plan of action in order to meet the budget deadlines.
That message was supported by the city’s chief financial officer, Margaret Karpenko, who said that the committee chairs must present their respective budgets on February 23 for her to be able to present the budget as a whole.
She said that the details and recommendations have to be hashed out now, in the committee meetings, if they are going to be included in what moves forward.
“If people have ideas or concerns, we need to discuss them now,” she urged. “On February 23, we have to move forward; every week makes very critical decisions to get our tax bills out.
“If we get to February 23 and we don’t have a plan and that budget gets defeated, I have real concern about being able to produce tax bills for June,” she added.
But if the comments made by many councillors on Friday are anything to go on, then a budget calling for a 5.88 per cent increase would fail to get the required six votes and, ultimately, get defeated.
“You might get one or two votes, but you’re not going to get your budget passed, in my honest opinion,” Mayor Al McDonald said to Forgette during the meeting. “If you’re going down this road, your budget is going to be defeated.”
Other councillors, like George Maroosis and Derek Shogren, made it clear that they would prefer to see a levy increase closer to the rise in cost of living because of the stagnating or declining local trends.
For arguments sake and discussion purposes, those around the table agreed to call that increase around 2.5 per cent.
“The reality is that we can’t have a five or six per cent tax increase, and I certainly am not going to vote for one,” Maroosis said bluntly. “If I was the budget chief, I would have said that, in these living circumstances, we can’t defend anything above the cost of living.
“It’s not sustainable to have a five or six per cent tax increase in this community,” he added. “We haven’t had the discussion about our customers; these are the people that we are expecting to pay the five or six per cent increase.”
Maroosis recommended taking a closer look at the city’s human resources for efficiencies and even said he has considered looking at changing the level of services in departments like snow removal.
But as Coun. Tanya Vrebosch alluded to, bringing the total down closer to the cost of living from the proposed levy would require the group to find roughly $2.4 million of cuts.
She questioned her fellow politicians as to where they recommend those cuts be made and, instead, said she was supportive of the proposed hike, saying that one year of pain might be necessary in order to reduce the increases in the future.
She said Forgette is in the unenviable position of recovering the city’s financial standing after the previous year's budget, which saw the city face a $2.4 million shortfall.
“It’s going to be a tough year and it’s going to be a tough pill to swallow,” said Vrebosch.
“I’m a taxpayer too; I don’t want to see it, but we are going to have to deal with it,” she argued. “When we do what we have done the last couple of years, it’s time to suck it up and we have to deal with it.”
Coun. Daryl Vaillancourt, on the other hand, said he thinks finding the approximate $2.4 million to bring the levy down would likely be difficult but not iimpossible to achieve. He suggested looking at addressing the pay-as-you-go spending budget and salt usage for the roads.
Now that they are late in the budget cycle and the pressure is on, the Mayor recommended that Forgette sit down with the fellow committee chairs to develop a more detailed plan. While no specific date or time was set, Forgette did say that meeting would be arranged as soon as possible.
Next in the budget discussion lineup is a community services business unit budget review next Tuesday, where chairman of the committee, Coun. Mark King, said some savings recommendations will be coming forward.
