When it comes to budgets, the devil is often in the details — but so is the savings. Penticton council began its 2011 budget deliberations this week, grinding its way through various city departments’ operating budgets line-by-line and picking out about $161,000 worth of cuts. With the budget process, council faces a $868,000 shortfall in 2011 and a spiraling structural deficit projected to hit over $1.06 million by 2015. This following a year it and city management implemented a major organizational restructuring, eliminating 30 positions, reducing budgets and amalgamating departments and job responsibilities. Coun. John Vassilaki began the meetings announcing that he would like to see council not only eliminate the shortfall but also reduce taxes by three to five per cent. City staff provided a list of budget initiative for council’s consideration which collectively could add $957,500 to the city’s bottom line, according to the document. The list highlighted $314,500 worth of proposed expenditure reductions including the: elimination of the downtown Penticton Association’s sunshine Cabaret Grant; reduction of the current level of beach sand sifting and cleaning; disposal of low use vehicles in the city’s fleet; elimination of the proposed purchase of a fire rescue boat; elimination of one polling station during the 2011 civic election; elimination of free parking at the South Okanagan Events Centre and Penticton Trade and Convention Centre; elimination of the fire department’s first responder program; and elimination of the pest control program.
Revenue generating ideas totaling $643,000 included: an increase to planning department fees; an increase in pay parking; an increase in legal survey fees; charging owners the actual costs for putting a notice on title when infractions are committed; charging market value for the use of city sidewalks for cafés; connecting fees and charges for fire department inspections and false alarms; tightening up permissive tax exemptions; and charging extra fees for litter cleanup after events and tournaments.
After some discussion, council agreed to hold off on the list in order to give the various stakeholders and the general public a chance to share input on each item and to see where the budget sits after council has finished its line-by-line vetting — although some items on the list were eventually decided upon during the line-by-line process which has yet to be completed. First, council voted unanimously to reduce by $35,000 the budget the city uses to pay for staff and members of council to attend conferences such as the Union of B.C. Municipalities and to pay for civic membership dues to various organizations. A 5-2 vote saw the elimination of an $11,000-budget to host dignitaries from Penticton’s sister-city in Japan: Ikeda, as it is suspected they will not visit this year. Both Councillors Vassilaki and Judy Sentes voted against the move. Vassilaki said officials in Ikeda always treat their Penticton guests well and that he would like to see Penticton improve upon the way “we treat them.” Another unanimous vote saw the elimination of a polling station during the upcoming civic election for a savings of $15,000, with council also committing to provide a free shuttle service from the south end of the city to the polling the remaining station, likely at the Trade and Convention Centre. Before recessing the process until Wednesday, council voted unanimously to reduce the fire department’s callout off-duty personnel budget by $50,000, after receiving Chief Wayne Williams’ approval to do so. “I am more than willing to reduce it by that amount if you feel,” said Williams, stipulating that if the city did have a major fire this year he would likely need the money put back into the fire department’s budget. Council also looked at reducing the RCMP’s overtime budget, however, after reducing his budget from $330,000 to $229,000 prior to the deliberations, Insp. Brad Haugli told council he had no room left to cut.
Human resources manager Gillian Kenny also told a similar story regarding the advertising, recruitment and moving expenses budget which she reduced from $100,000 in 2010 to $50,000 this year. Despite her advice, a motion was tabled to reduce that budget further by $15,000, however, it was defeated by councillors Sentes, Vassilaki, Andrew Jakubeit and Garry Litke. As well a motion to reduce the city’s overall equipment replacement reserve — a move council used last year to the tune of over $400,000 to balance the budget, despite staff warnings — by $300,000 was postponed to a future budget meeting to give staff time to analyze the idea.
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