Couns. Stewart Young, Brian Varga and Chris Hellman pressed city staff for more information on efforts to reduce the budget during a city committee meeting Thursday morning. City staff were able to reduce their operation costs by $2 million over the past year without impacting service levels, equating into a 1.3 per cent tax base savings.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
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Couns. Chris Hellman, Brain Varga and Stuart Young pressed city staff Thursday for more information on how much it costs to operate and provide current levels of service to residents, while seeking to keep tax increases to a minimum.
Questions arose during a city committee presentation detailing internal efforts to reclassify positions, reduce operating expenses and staff, find savings through administrative and fuel expenses and reduce office training and travel costs – a combined reduction of $2 million.
That equates to a 1.3 per cent reduction to the city’s overall budget, which could have potentially been passed on to the tax base, increasing the proposed tax hike from 5.6 to 6.9 per cent.
“We are very cognizant of increasing the tax rate, we don’t want to do that,” said Lola Barta, director of finance. “We’re all taxpayers in the community, so we definitely don’t want to put more pressure on that.”
The city was able to reach its $2-million efficiency target by focusing on permanently reducing operation expenses within the municipal department, and did not include energy- or rate-based departments.
Over the past year the city has reduced staffing levels, including the reduction of three vacant full-time equivalent positions and the reclassification of five positions from a higher level.
An example would be a manager role being reduced to a co-ordinator role, says Barta.
The city was also able to significantly reduce administrative and support costs, including a reduction in investment management fees of four per cent, thanks to elimination of the current overlay manager role.
Due in part to removal of the federal carbon tax, the city says it was able to save 18 per cent on fuel costs, however those prices can fluctuate and risk increasing again in the future.
The city was also able to find additional savings from a reduction in watering of parks and green spaces.
Remaining savings came from reallocation of concrete and storm project work, which will commence again next year; however the city will be able to move some funding from its operating budget into its capital infrastructure budget.
Coun. Varga asked staff if they will be able to continue to operate with the cost-saving measures in place in the future and inquired if the city could be doing more to tighten its budget.
Varga said during his election campaign, voters shared concerns about staffing levels.
“We get hammered with that all the time,” he said. “We’ve got too many people doing a job looking after the city, right? So I’d love to have an answer back for them.”
Barta said they were able to reach the $2-million goal without impacting service levels, but any further reductions would have to be considered by council as a whole.
“The next step of this is that if you want further reductions, we will have to go through that exercise and look at what services are being cut,” she said.
Varga is hoping to provide more transparency on decisions made by the city, such as contracting out work to run facilities or using in-house staff.
Barta cited third-party operators at APARC and Co-op Place not providing results the city expected, and decisions were made to operate internally, while on the flip side, partnership with Unison and the Veiner Centre has proved beneficial.
“We do a better job sometimes because we are the public facing, and it’s our facility,” said Barta. “So we do want to promote it better and do a better job of providing that service to the public.”
“But again, it comes down to dollars and cents,” replied Varga.
Young said voters he spoke with during the election campaign also have a perception the city is bloated and wasteful with spending.
“What I want to do is, I want to have as much information as possible so that I can help the city communicate to its citizens,” he said. “What I find challenging right now is figuring out what data to get, where to go, what data should I be focusing on so that I can understand where we’re at.”
Young, who has a background in human resources, requested more information on current city staffing levels with information on payroll increases and comparisons.
Coun. Hellman echoed Young’s request.
“Just understanding why there’s the shift, that would help us communicate for sure.” he said.
Council will re-enter budget deliberations on Dec. 8 it following a motion passed Nov. 18 to delay decision on several budget changes, including changes to 2026 electric generation and gas production, as well as to bylaws on land and real estate and utility rates for next year.
