Prioritize civic service delivery: poll, chamber

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This article was published 02/05/2019 (2066 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A commissioned poll shows an overwhelming majority of Winnipeggers believe there is a need for city hall to prioritize its service delivery and concentrate its spending in those areas, according to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.

Loren Remillard, chamber president, said the Probe Research poll supports the need for a city-wide conversation to determine civic priorities as it prepares for a four-year budget, explaining it’s not an issue to be decided by members of council alone.

“This conversation needs to go beyond city hall to all of Winnipeg,” Remillard told the Free Press on Friday.

City hall is about to abandon its traditional approach of annual budgets in favour of a four-year budget which would cover 2020-23, outlining annual property tax increases for that period, along with the services that will be delivered.

KPMG was recently awarded a $100,000 contract to work with city councillors to develop a strategic plan in preparation for the four-year budget. While some department heads have stated they’ve been told to submit four-year plans by June, city hall has not released a statement on how the four-year budget will be arrived at and what role the public will play.

Finance chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham said he didn’t know details about the public consultations, but believes they will be occurring, adding he supports a services review.

"I believe that over the years the City of Winnipeg is guilty of mission creep, and I have been talking about the need for council to review the city’s core services since the last term of council," Gillingham said. "City services should be reviewed with the goal to ensure core services are prioritized and delivered efficiently."

Remillard said public consultations on determining civic service priorities needs to be done in conjunction with the development of the four-year budget, adding it has to be something more extensive than a three-week rush job.

“We would hope it’s something that creates an opportunity for people to have a conversation, not just one-on-one with the city but amongst ourselves, because that’s where some difficult conversations and decisions that would need to be made,” Remillard said. “The exercise is not just about getting information from citizens but engaging them with each other about the very issues that we’re talking about.”

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The Probe poll was conducted in mid-March, in the days just before and after the passage of the City of Winnipeg’s 2019 operating and capital budgets; a time when a $40-million funding dispute between the city and the provincial government had reached a fever pitch.

“I believe that over the years the City of Winnipeg is guilty of mission creep, and I have been talking about the need for council to review the city’s core services since the last term of council”
– Finance chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham

The poll of 600 adult Winnipeggers found: 88 per cent agreed with the statement city hall needed to receive more funding from the provincial and federal governments; and 81 per cent agreed with the statement city hall needs to “carefully” review its services and reduce spending on those services considered less essential.

In a news release issued Friday, Remillard said examples of services that need to be examined include city-owned golf courses and the ambulance system.

Remillard told the Free Press city hall needs to engage its citizens to question every service it currently provides to determine which are considered most essential.

He dismissed criticisms the chamber’s proposal for a review is driven by a right-wing agenda to shrink the role of government, which appears to be a common theme among recently elected provincial governments in Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba.

“Cities are grappling with increasing pressures, diminishing fiscal room, and flexibility and avenues for them to be able to support core services. We see growing infrastructure deficits. Cities are at a crossroads in this country — not just Winnipeg,” Remillard said.

“It’s not about left, right or centre — it’s just about saying you’ve only got so much time and money, focus on the right things and do them extremely well. That’s not an ideology, it’s just common sense.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca