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Council impatient for report on spanning $6M budget gap

Some city councillors are getting impatient for details on how the city is going to solve its $6-million budget gap. Meeting Tuesday, Ward 5 Coun.
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City councillors are still waiting on a report for how the city can refill the reserve fund after using $6 million from it to fund this year's tax freeze. File photo.
Some city councillors are getting impatient for details on how the city is going to solve its $6-million budget gap.

Meeting Tuesday, Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan said he was expecting a report by now detailing the strategy on how the money can be found through efficiencies and attrition.

Kirwan was under the impression that councillors would be reviewing job postings to determine whether the jobs had to be filled, as part of a $2 million savings target through downsizing city staff.

“I looked at the job board today, and I saw about 72 postings,” Kirwan said. “It doesn't seem like we're working toward the attrition target.”

Kirwan proposed the attrition policy during budget deliberations in February, setting a goal of saving one per cent – or $2.3 million – of the city's $230-million salaries budget through attrition in the coming year, saving money by gradually shrinking the city's workforce.

“I'm a little concerned if we don't get into the game, we're going to have difficulty achieving this target through attrition,” he said Tuesday.

In response, interim CAO Bob Johnston said he was only days into his new position, and was in the process of meeting with staff and getting up to speed on the job ahead of him.

But he said he was aware of the importance of the attrition strategy, adding that the majority of the job postings on the city's website were temporary positions. The corporation's focus was looking for innovative ways to downsize staff without affecting services.

“We're hoping to get ideas that are beyond the traditional,” Johnston said. “There's some urgency with timelines – we understand this fully.”

The $6 million budget gap is a result of the city drawing on reserve funds to pay for a budget freeze this year. A report on the strategy is due at the June finance committee meeting.

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