After six months of debate, discussion and number-crunching, the City of St. John’s tabled and passed its budget for 2021 yesterday.
The city managed to hold the line on property taxes, while increasing fees and fines, reducing spending and drawing on previous year surpluses, as well as government COVID relief, to balance the books.
In the end, council voted 9-2 in favour of the budget, with Councillors Maggie Burton and Ian Froude voting against, saying the issues of sidewalk snowclearing and public transit were left out in the cold.
Burton says some are clearly affected more than others. She says people keep saying we’re all in the same boat, which she says isn’t true, we may all be in the same storm, but some have better boats than others.
Froude says while there was extensive consultation on sidewalk snowclearing, ultimately the wishes of the people were ignored.
He says the budget doesn’t recognize that sidewalk snowclearing is an essential service that must improve. He says the pandemic context, which urges people to spend more time outside, should be reason enough to address the issue.
The city did delay service reductions to Metrobus until April, but the budget still calls for staff to find 500 thousand dollars in savings within the next year.
Meanwhile, Council’s lead on finance, Dave Lane, says he hears the concerns expressed from Burton and Froude.
Lane explains that not even he is pleased with everything in the budget and that he has often stood alongside those frustrated with sidewalk snowclearing and Metrobus issues.
What Lane is pleased with, however, is the amount of effort put into finding a balance with the document.
He says in terms of the “hot button issues” in the public eye, he looks at ways that improvements have already been made.
For example, he points to recent investments in fleet maintenance and renewal that will have an impact on snowclearing this coming winter. He says they didn’t add funds into snowclearing this year because they didn’t want to have a tax burden on residents, and increasing service levels was something they didn’t want to do.
As far as Metrobus is concerned, he points to maintaining service levels until April and past work to make rides free to children age 12 and under as ways the service has been improved, despite no funds being allocated.
