Councillors during Thursday's budget deliberations. From left: Terra Lennox-Zepp, Don Cody, Blake Edwards, Ted Zurakowski. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

City Finances

Councillors approve 2020 budget

Nov 8, 2019 | 9:05 AM

P.A. city council has taken $247,330 from an emergency reserve fund to help offset a potentially large tax increase in their 2020 budget.

After two days of deliberations, councillors cut the initial 4.9 per cent increase recommended by city staff down to 2.9 per cent.

Mayor Greg Dionne said he was pleased with the outcome and had no problem using the reserve funds.

“That was created in 2011 by the council of the day for emergencies. Well we’ve gone through power outage emergencies, we went through the water crisis in 2016 and we’ve never touched it,” he said.

“That’s tax-payer’s money, so instead of having it sit there and do nothing, take it out, put it in today’s budget and give it back to [them].”

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He also clarified that depleting the fund would not hamper the city from responding to a potential emergency in the future.

“We have a bank account, and the thing is if a city has an emergency, 250 [thousand dollars] isn’t going to help us. Look, it was four million for the water crisis.”

Mayor Greg Dionne during Thursday’s budget deliberations (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW staff)

The 2.9 per cent increase means if you own a home assessed at $350,000 your annual municipal property taxes will go up $63.84, or $5.32 per month.

There were few big capital expenditures in the budget. Most city departments saw their funding maintained or modestly increased, with the largest chunk of cash going to the police service.

“If you look at the budget it’s all repair and rebuild and that’s what I’m into because our city’s looking really good and we’re going to continue that into 2020,” said Dionne.

City administration had asked for a 4.9 per cent increase partly to fund new staff positions, including an asset manager and a traffic light maintenance technician, both of which council ultimately did not approve.

“They made some tough decisions today,” said City Manager Jim Toye. “However, having said that, I think everyone as far as administration is concerned is pretty happy with where they landed.”

The budget approved on Thursday is still pending a final vote by council.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom