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I am sometimes asked how Council
actually handles the budget each year so I am giving a brief overview of our
usual processes.
We have been fortunate to have been
able to go for more than 12 years from 1992 without any increases in City
taxes but as of 2003, this became impossible to do as a result of rising
costs and downloaded services coupled with reduction or removal of
provincial grants. While we have been unable to bring in budgets that have
no tax increase, our goal is always to keep any such increases as low as
possible.
While we deal with budget issues
formally, we are constantly reviewing service levels and costs throughout
the entire year. Our staff have been finding cost savings in every single
department for the past 15 years and we are getting to the point where it is
increasingly difficult to find any more cuts.
In 2004 and 2004, Council directed
staff to undertake full in depth service level reviews. Each department was
directed to look at every single service they provide and ask their staff to
suggest ways that costs could be reduced. Nothing was to be left out,
regardless of how extreme it may seem.
Senior staff then compiled these
suggestions along with service information and costs and Council spent many
meetings going over each item. At this time, senior staff gave us options
for cost reductions. These were prioritized as Options 1, 2 and 3 with 1
having the most impact on residents. We discussed these options, reviewed
the suggestions and told staff which ones we were not prepared to look at
further. These included severe reductions in transit service and library
hours (including closing some smaller branches).
We were able to find reductions in
the options with the lesser impacts that helped us to reduce our budgets for
each of these years. It is important to know that while our capital costs
are usually very high in certain years and it may seem to make sense to
delay projects to save these costs, this type of action will only help in
that year. In order to realize ongoing savings, we have to reduce
operational costs that will bring us long term cost savings.
We also have to look carefully at
all capital projects to determine if they are still needed and what impact
removing them from the City’s plans will have on our communities. It is not
always easy to balance the requests and needs of a growing major city with
the equally important need to reduce spending.
Armed with direction from Council,
staff prepare individual departmental budgets to bring to Council for the
formal review in the fall of each year. Some of the information in this
budget is based on information that is yet to be confirmed by the province.
For example, we do not always know what grants we will get for transit or
what gas tax money will be forthcoming. It is not unusual for this to
change with very little advance warning so our staff have to make educated
estimates of what we can expect. We also may have to wait for assessment
growth figures until the end of the budget process.
It has always been helpful to me to
hear what my residents want to see in terms of service levels and capital
programs. In the past I have held ward meetings or undertaken online
surveys and asked residents to email me their suggestions. In September
2005, I held an Open House and while attendance was not as good as I had
expected, we did receive valuable input from those residents who came out to
hear the budget and discuss service options. Most of these residents were
satisfied with the levels of service they receive from the City and did not
want to see any further reductions. They made some excellent suggestions
that we took into consideration during the formal budget discussions.
All budget committee meetings are
open to the public and we encourage the media to attend although it is
common for the media to only be there for the initial overview and not the
discussion. It is in the individual department reviews however that we
discuss any changes we want to see. Staff are usually sent away with
direction to look at a suggestion and come back with a report to budget
committee at a later date.
For example, at the December 2005
budget committee meetings, I asked staff to bring us information on what it
would cost to reinstate the leaf vacuuming pickup program that was stopped
in 2004. The program itself was still provided but we stopped adding any
new streets to the service. This meant that those residents in Ward 9 whose
homes were coming up to meeting the 30 year criteria would not receive the
service that other residents were getting. Staff brought back a report in
January 2006 with the costs and Council supported my recommendation to put
it back into the budget as it was not a significant amount but did impact a
large number of homes.
At the same time we had a report on
adding windrow clearing to the snow maintenance budget but did not proceed
with that based on the extremely high cost and the fact that only larger
lots could receive the service. As the majority of residents in Ward 9
would not be able to take advantage of this, I could not support the
addition of the program to this year’s budget. However we are still looking
at ways of improving snow maintenance services.
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Ward
9