City councillors expressed concerns about some of the proposed options to get to a tax freeze this year, a reflection of the difficult decisions ahead of passing a final $512 million budget by early March.
Among the items on the chopping block is the annual tipping fee holiday, in which residents can bring garbage to the city landfill free of charge. The cut is expected to save about $80,000.
But Ward 4 Coun. Evelyn Dutrisac says she's worried that eliminating the tipping fee holiday will lead to more illegal dumping. City staff estimate there were 4,000 trips to the city's landfills during the holiday in 2014.
Dutrisac said they may end up creating a new expense while trying to save money in the short term.
“What do we do, when we do find” illegal garbage dumped somewhere? Dutrisac asked. “What would the city do if someone was caught throwing an oven into the bush?”
And Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan argued that eliminating the tipping fee holiday amounts to a reduction in service, which goes against what taxpayers were promised.
“I'm concerned that a number of things on our option list is, in fact, a loss of service,” Kirwan said. “If you're going to take away a tipping fee week, that is a reduction in service.”
Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann argued that eliminating the $15,000 budget to offer financial incentives to attract new doctors would harm recruitment efforts.
She asked Ian Wood, the city's head of economic development, whether eliminating the fund would mean fewer doctors for the city. He replied they still have a budget for social events and, with the medical school and residents training at Health Sciences North, they still have ways to reach out to doctors.
“Without the incentives, the emphasis will be on building personal relationship with students at NOSM,” he said. “But we don't know whether eliminating incentives will have an impact, and we won't know for many years.”
Councillors approved a motion from Landry-Altmann to put the recruitment incentives back into the budget 'parking lot,' which is where all budget proposals go for voting on later on in the process.
When councillors began scrutinizing budget items worth a few thousand dollars, Mayor Brian Bigger said they needed to think bigger to reduce costs long term.
“We're looking at small dollar amounts here,” Bigger said.
What is needed are ideas such as talk of saving $5 million by restructuring the operation of the city's landfills or selling surplus city buildings to raise revenue.
Other budget items discussed Tuesday:
-- The city's clerks department spends $10,000 a year flying in translators for people in provincial offences court. They're looking at doing it through video linkup instead to save money.
-- An increase of 35% in postal rates led to a $100,000 increase in postage costs for the city.
-- The clerks department is looking at saving $140,000 in its phone budget by making better use of Voice Over Internet technology.
-- There's turnover of about 180 staff at the city each year, out of about 2,000 employees. An average of 50-60 staff are eligible for retirement each year.
-- The generator that has been sitting in a parking spot outside of the Greater Sudbury Police station – seemingly forever -- is finally going to be removed. The generator is almost at the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced.
City staff has given councillors a total of 26 options to save the $8.4 million needed to freeze taxes without laying off staff. The budget should be passed by the end of February or early March.
