And there it is… the 2020 City of Thunder Bay Budget was approved last night by council. Although there were a few further cuts brought forward, and a couple of attempts to add to the budget – the 4 motions that were carried over to last night for council to decide on all lost.
With that, your taxes are going up 1.89% this year – which, when looking back over the last few years is fairly low. It doesn’t take away from the fact that your water bill is going up 4% this year, but it does make it feel a bit better.
One of the things that was reduced last night was the budget to the Thunder Bay Public Library. After a re-vote, and recorded vote last night, council took $50,000.00 from the library budget and moved it into youth programs. This turned into a lively social media debate with the Councillors who voted for the reduction an easy target. Voting in favour of the reduction were Councillors Bentz, You, Ruberto, McKinnon, Johnson, Hamilton, Aiello. Against the motion were Oliver, Fraser, Foulds, Ch’ng, and Mayor Mauro.
What I find most interesting about this turn of events is the social media backlash the Councillors in favour of the reduction are seeing. More specifically, people are specifically targeting their re-election in 2 years. Now we know most will forget about this year’s budget by then – but as always – its good people are paying attention.
But here’s the strange part. I know I’ve mentioned this too many times before – but it might help a little in the perspective of where your votes go in 2 years. One year ago, this city council added, 3 weeks after the budget process, $50,000.00 to give to a local ski team. It passed overwhelmingly. This is the same council that just took $50,000.00 and moved it to another program. There are 13 members of the ski team. How many citizens use the libraries? How many citizens need the library? This is the same group of people – one year later. Someone needs to help me understand why some Councillors are so upset about the reduction of the library – but forget that we spent over 2 million dollars OUTSIDE of last year’s budget. You wonder why we needed cuts this year? That’s why. Am i over simplifying it maybe? Sure. But as a citizen – and a tax payer – i will continue to question how this group is spending my money. And this one is glaring. It makes no sense.
The question now becomes, how long will it take this year for them to spend over their budget on something that we don’t completely need and how will that effect next year’s budget. Last year it took 3 weeks after the budget to hand out 50k to the ski team – any bets on how long it will take this year? Will they be more responsible with the budget this year so we’re not in the same trouble next? Do we have faith in that?
Before we start the crusade of voting out the Councillors that reduced the library budget, how about we keep track over the next year of the money spent outside the budget that’s not on our city’s capital, infrastructure and true needs and look at those that vote to approve it. I think you might be surprised.
That’s just my two cents.
~John
