After four nights of deliberations, the Chatham-Kent municipal budget has been approved with an overall tax increase of 2.40 per cent for 2021.
The increase amounts to an additional $71 per year for a house assessed at $173,000 in Chatham-Kent. Going into budget deliberations, administration was proposing an increase of 3.96 per cent.
Councillors closed off this year's deliberations by approving a motion from Councillor Steve Pinsonneault that $300,000 be removed from the base budget at staff's discretion as to which department, with no cuts to current services.
"We have a $334-million budget and it should be easy enough to find $300,000 within our base budget," he said. "Every year we have surpluses of a $1-million plus...which we turn around and use it in some spots, but mostly it goes into reserves again... I think this is a great way to knock some money off the budget without affecting any services."
However, Chief Administrative Officer Don Shropshire said it could be difficult to leave the decision to staff of where to cut funding and a report would have to come back during a regular council meeting in 2021 on where the $300,000 in reductions were made.
"We have heard time and again from several different council members that they're really concerned about changing a level of service. Whether that's reducing the number of hours that our offices are open or changing how often we cut the grass. All of those are tied to staffing, all of those are tied to service levels," Shropshire explained. "I'm asking council to give us at least some areas where you're prepared to entertain some cuts. We don't want to make a cut, upset people, then come back in and have council say 'that's not an acceptable area.'"
After approval of Pinsonneault's motion, Mayor Darrin Canniff successfully put forward a slightly altered motion that still offered some savings but provided staff with a bit more time to find permanent cuts. Canniff's motion requested that up to $300,000 come from the Strategic Development Reserve for 2021 with administration coming back in the fall with permanent savings found through service reviews.
"So [staff] will replace the $300,000 that comes out of reserves in 2021 with $300,000 in savings that they found in the base budget through service reviews. We keep the same idea but it flows and administration has time to find those permanent cuts," said Canniff."
During the other nights of deliberations, council found savings through decreasing some annual funding towards strategic reserves and towards facility top-ups, slightly reducing and altering the previously approved increase in funding towards underground storm sewer infrastructure, changing the physician recruitment initiative funding to a two-year project and changing the proposed lifecycle inflation from 1.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent.
Shropshire stated that the difficulty of the 2021 budget was something not seen in many, many years.
"This is likely or arguably the most challenging budget deliberations we've had in over 10 years," he said. "In addition to our regular challenges, we have also needed to consider the uncertainties and economic consequences of COVID."
