City departments asked to tighten belt more

With less funding now coming in from the province, Prince Albert’s police and fire departments are being asked to find more than $250,000 in savings.

The city’s budget committee is expected to meet tomorrow to discuss the ramifications of this year’s provincial budget. The reduction in provincial funding is estimated at roughly $2.1 million, which means the city has to go back to the drawing board to make up that difference.

The recommendations on the table, which require city council approval, include using $1 million from last year’s surplus and asking departments to find additional savings.

The fire department is being asked to find $53,820 by not immediately replacing equipment, and postponing recruitment and improvements to facilities.

Fire Chief Jason Everitt said the additional savings won’t have an impact on services and added the fire department can make do with for the moment.

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“The $53,000 was what we came up with internally,” he said. “Is it difficult? Absolutely. There’s no doubt the reduction in budget poses some challenges. We attempted to trim our budget significantly going into the 2017 budget cycle. This challenge was in addition to that.”

Everitt explained the decision to postpone this year’s recruitment was because there was no change to the staff list. This move will save the department $1,500.

The fire department’s final budget is roughly $6.9 million.

For the Prince Albert Police Service, the city is asking for $200,000 in savings.

While the fire department was able to pinpoint where to make the cuts, it’s unclear how the police force will be able to bring their final budget to $15.8 million.

Police Chief Troy Cooper also promised there wouldn’t be impacts to public safety or the level of service.

“At the end of the day, whatever figure [the budget committee] decides to provide the board of police commissioners to work with, I will then sit with our board after and go over the impact of any changes to the budget,” he said. “We’re going to take a look at our entire budget and going through to see where we can find funds through vacancy management or whatever and also to find ways to find revenue from outside sources.”

The city department tasked with finding the largest savings is the community services department, which needs to trim $222,920 to reach its final budget at $6.6 million.

Meanwhile, the Sask. Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) is taking steps to challenge the provincial government on the number of cuts. In a media release on Monday, SUMA called on the governing SaskParty to work with municipalities.

SUMA criticized the government, among other things, for capping the grants in lieu to municipalities, eliminating the Saskatchewan Transportation Company, cutting the community rink affordability grant, the main street Saskatchewan program and cutting funding to the urban highway connector program.

The province is expecting a $683 million shortfall in 2017-18. The SaskParty is attempting to balance the budget by 2020.

Jeff.labine@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @labinereporter