City’s finance chair briefs business leaders over breakfast on multi-year budget priorities

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This article was published 08/03/2020 (1754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Finance committee chairman Coun. Scott Gillingham joined the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce for breakfast Monday to discuss the city’s preliminary four-year budget just days after its release.

Gillingham offered attendees an overview of the city’s priorities in the preliminary budget, including significant investments in transit, road renewal, community safety and services, tree canopy and fire protection.

The councillor touted the budget’s long-term focus on infrastructure investment, including a historic $130.3 million proposed for local and regional roads in 2020, with a projected total of $847 million invested in the city’s roads over the next six years.

Other budget investment highlights include annual two per cent increases to the Winnipeg Police Service operating budget, which would grow from $289.4 million in 2019 to more than $313 million by 2023, the creation of two new fire stations in Windsor Park— slated for 2022 — and Waverly West in 2023, and a 60 per cent increase in capital funds to urban forest enhancement and reforestation improvements.

Priority investments, of course, must be balanced with reduced expenditures, Gillingham told the room. Early budget consultations proposed nearly $147 million in expenditure reductions over the next four years, though the actual proposed budget retained only $118 million in cuts.

“We work very hard to ensure that pools are not closed, libraries are not closed, arenas are not closed — all of those facilities that are open now will remain open,” he said after breakfast Monday.

“We did have to make some difficult decisions though, to balance the budget.”

The multi-year budget — the first of its kind for Winnipeg — has come under fire from some community members for its cuts to community services, including a reduction in library hours and leisure programs, sweeping grant-funding reductions for community groups, and the elimination of the U-Pass transit option for students.

“You cannot continue to be all things to all people; you have to pick what is your core mandate, what are the core services you need to provide to meet that mandate, and do them well,” Loren Remillard, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said Monday.

“That means some of the services the city has historically provided that aren’t really core services; they’re nice, but not essential to running the city, those ones are going to see reduced or no funding.”

Remillard celebrated the city’s multi-year focus in the 2020-23 budget, noting that councillors had long been criticized for “too much short-term decision making,” and added that the long-term vision means there’s still time for input and adjustments to the city’s priorities.

“With any budget there’s going to be things that really sing for you and others that hit the wrong note,” he said.

Council will vote on the budget March 25. Until then, the city plans to continue meeting with key stakeholders to gather feedback on the four-year financial blueprint.

 

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers