Tough budget meetings set for tonight, Wednesday

The process of passing Greater Sudbury's $512 million budget for 2015 picks up pace this week, with two meetings slated for Tuesday and Wednesday.

The budget is a particular challenge this year, for a number of reasons. First, since it's an election year, a process that normally begins in the fall was delayed until the new city council was inaugurated in December. That meant the first budget meetings of the new term weren't held until January.

The election brought in 10 new councillors, as well as a new mayor, many of whom are going through the budget process for the first time. Mayor Brian Bigger also campaigned on a promise to freeze taxes without laying off full-time staff or cutting services, a big challenge with provincial grants being cut by more than $3 million and the cost of maintaining existing services rising by $2.8 million.

Staff began the process by whittling down an early estimate of a 4.9 per cent increase down to 3.6 per cent, but that still means $8.4 million must be found to freeze taxes.
Sudburians got a glimpse of how that could be achieved last week with a presentation from the finance department on 26 options on how to get to zero.

They include changing the definition of a senior, which would bring in $150,000 in revenue, eliminating the tipping fee holiday at city landfills, which would save $80,000 and charging residents who live outside the boundaries of Sudbury Transit $3.75 for transcab rides. Other options include taking $1.4 million from the tax stabilization fund, and delaying or cancelling $2.5 million in capital projects council has already set aside money for.

Those capital projects include $500,000 allocated to expand and put a roof over the Grace Hartman Amphitheatre; $500,000 for records management software; $800,000 from a human resources reserve fund; and, $1.2 million already set aside for the upgrade of services in the Lasalle-Elisabella industrial park.

At their meetings this week, councillors will review $600,000 planned for the healthy community initiative funds, as well as the capital budgets for each department. Those projects include $1.5 million in renovations to Tom Davies Square; $3 million for work at the city's landfills; $3.8 million for upgrading and repairs of the city's playgrounds and leisure facilities; and $79 million in capital projects for roads and water and sewer work.

At Wednesday's meeting, councillors will also take another look at a proposal to convert all of the city's 14,627 streetlights to brighter, more energy efficient LED lights.

A staff report on the project said the conversion would cost about $8 million, to be funded from existing reserve funds. That money would be paid back to reserves over nine years, through about $700,000 in annual savings in energy costs.

When the proposal was presented to the operations committee Feb. 3, however, councillors were reluctant to support it without information on whether cost-savings estimates were realized from a smaller conversion project in 2012. Those figures are expected to be available for Wednesday's meeting.