Even with an expected battle over reducing transit services, the city’s 2010 budget may be the easiest one in years, but that’s an anomaly, according to Capital Ward Coun. Clive Doucet.
Public delegations on the budget start this morning and are scheduled to last all week.
With the help of stimulus funding from senior levels of government, and provincial government uploading the cost of the Ontario Disability Support Program, Doucet said the city was able to create a budget that called for few significant service reductions, except for transit.
City council is considering cuts to several bus routes and increasing taxes by almost four per cent.
“There is something really wrong with our ability to strike a balanced budget when, after receiving almost $400 million in funding from senior levels of government, we still can’t balance the budget,” said Doucet.
In his state of the city address, Mayor Larry O’Brien warned councillors against adding items to the budget.
“If they feel strongly about additions,” he said in his Jan. 13 speech, “I ask them to identify corresponding deletions that will offset that charge.”
