The hacking and slashing at city hall sees the proposed property tax increase for 2018 coming in at less than a percent.
The original proposed increase of 2.6% was revised to 2.1% before councillors began cutting to leave the tax hike at 0.9%.
Mayor Drew Dilkens is happy to see council pare down the increase to near-zero.
"I think it was just a sign that, you know, we could actually do it without taking hard cuts," says Dilkens. "I don't think there were any hard cuts here, in fact we added some additions. It was a matter of looking at all of the things that were on the list and deciding what was appropriate to add and what could maybe wait until next year."
Councillors for the City of Windsor comb through the proposed 2018 operating budget on January 15, 2018. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Trimmed from the budget was the proposed hiring of two new fire prevention officers as well as a deputy fire chief position totalling more than $500,000. Also getting the axe was a $54,000 increase to the tree mulch program meant to help protect city trees, a request to add a playground inspection program at a cost of nearly $250,000 and an over $300,000 increase to the city's annual legal claims budget.
Dilkens says budget time is where councillors have to make tough decisions.
"Of course every department, if you gave them more money they could do more, they could offer more services and council always has to make those tough decisions on what to fund and what not to fund," says Dilkens. "So, there were some additions here in staff, some additions here in programs but, by and large I would call this in many ways a status quo budget."
Dilkens stresses getting to zero would be far too painful.
"You'd have to pull fire trucks out of service, you'd have to let go all of your part-time summer students who take care of the parks, you'd be closing all of your outdoor pools — really the types of things that I don't think anyone here was interested in getting into," says Dilkens.
Windsor Ward 3 councillor Rino Bortolin attends a meeting where council works through the proposed 2018 operating budget on January 15, 2018. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Ward 3 city councillor Rino Bortolin feels the 2018 operating budget represents a missed opportunity.
He was dumbfounded by many of the cuts council voted through including $54,000 for an expanded tree mulch program and over $60,000 to staff the tech lab at the Windsor Public Library Ouellette branch.
"At the end of the day there were a lot of service enhancements that we missed out on and I think when you speak to residents, they're not just interested in holding the line on taxes — they want to see value for their money."
Bortolin wants to see city services win out over the bottom line.
"At the end of the day, there were decisions that were focused too much on cutting the pennies and then you end up doing, what I consider damage to what could have been a great, progressive budget," says Bortolin.
Councillors for the City of Windsor comb through the proposed 2018 operating budget on January 15, 2018. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Despite feeling there were missed opportunities, Bortolin says there were positive steps made in the budget including the addition of a needle disposal bin program across the city.
"We improved services in some areas for sure — social infrastructure I think was absolutely necessary — but, I think there were a lot of opportunities in parks that were missed, I think there were a lot of opportunities at the library that were missed and these are basic services," says Bortolin.
Administration highlighted the city's frugality over the last ten years by comparing the $401-million in property tax dollars being collected in the 2018 operating budget to the $412-million collected in the 2008 budget.
City Treasurer Joe Mancina also highlighted the debt paydown at city hall as the figure has dropped to $85-million in 2017 from $230-million in 2003. Mancina also highlighted what he called "unprecedented" infrastructure spending in Windsor with $519-million spent between 2009 and 2017 compared to $296-million between 2002 and 2008.
Mancina says reserves are strong at $180-million but, adds that's still below the provincial average.
Council will tackle the capital budget on Tuesday with the meeting set to begin at 1pm at city hall in council chambers.