The city will reduce staff by about $194,000, after Council approved a hiring freeze at last night’s budget ratifications.
It was the only proposed budget cut put forward by Councillor Rebecca Johnson that was actually supported by her colleagues. She initially came to the table with 13 potential cuts.
Councillor Andrew Foulds called it “ad-hoc budgeting.” Many councillors said the ideas were not properly researched, and that it would be short sighted to make a decision on the fly.
Residents will now see a levy increase of a little over three per cent.
Council passed about one per cent in savings, after they picked and prodded at the budget past midnight, in hopes of achieving an increase in the ballpark of 2 per cent.
Councillor Joe Virdiramo says debating proposed cuts back and forth in one night is unfair to city admin, noting they didn’t have a clear direction to come back with a budget reflecting 2 per cent.
The budget saw little opposition, with only four councillors voting against it.
Some of the other changes made included postponing things like medium-priority fleet replacement, work on Donald Street and upgrading bus shelters at city hall, and accepting a debenture of more than $700,000 for the Golf Links Road project.
