THUNDER BAY -- Some city councillors are praising the proposed budget for being proactive.
Councillors met with city administration Tuesday in order to get some clarification on what was inside the more than 400-page document. The different departments were spread out in order to give councillors a chance for one-on-one discussions.
The city is increasing the roads budget, spending more on infrastructure and maintenance. Coun. Aldo Ruberto said he believed the city was doing its due diligence.
“There’s nothing I see in the budget that seems wasteful, or disregarded,” he said. “That’s what other cities should be doing and that’s being proactive instead of reactive. When I ask different departments, I ask them what a normal person would ask them.”
One of the areas Ruberto wanted to question was the increase in emergency services. EMS is asking for an increase of 8.4 per cent from last year, while police services is looking for a 3.4 per cent boost. Fire services is requesting an increase of 0.9 per cent.
“People don’t want the prices to go up but they want (increased) services,” he said. “They want better and quicker services. That costs us. It costs us as a city. When you look at it closely you find the OPP … sets the rates. Once the OPP sets the rates then the police have to match it, then the fire matches them and the EMS matches them. It just keeps going up, up and up.”
Ruberto voiced concerns over the proposed seven per cent increase to water rates. The city increased the water rate last year by about 14 per cent. The forecast for next year shows another increase of about 5.6 per cent.
Red River Coun. Brian McKinnon wanted to make his first stop with Infrastructure and Operations and speak with the department general manager Darrell Matson.
He wanted to look at ways to beautify, something McKinnon said he has been vocal about for years.
“A lot of work has gone into the budget,” he said. “Council has been fairly definitive on essentially an inflation budget. I think administration has done a pretty good job. There’s always the issue about hires. I know there’s some people that are going to be hired and they are fairly specific jobs. They have convinced us in one form or another that they are important. We’ll argue that in the next two days and we’ll see.”
McKinnon believes there will be six new hires this year with several other positions being re-filled or covered by other levels of government.
Long-term financial overview will take place at city hall at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The public pre-budget consultation meeting will take place immediately after.
