Mods, please delete the Calgary Budget 2018 thread
A few things from Scott Dippel with the CBC:
The City's new four year budget is out. The proposal is for a 3.45% property tax increase for 2019. It calls for a 3% increase in each of 2020, 2021 and 2022. #yyccc
The City admin plans to find $40 m in savings with the potential of an additional $60 m for a total of ... $100m. #yyccc
Money is not available for new light rail vehicles. So this means over the four yr life of the budget, four car LRT service will be reduced to three cars. #yyccc
And speaking of transit, adult fares on Calgary Transit are proposed to increase by 10 cents in 2019... 10 cents in 2020, 10 cents in 2021 and 15 cents in 2022. #yyccc
Heritage Park asked for $1m to help it with its financial troubles. One option for #yyccc is to give it an add'l $491,000 by 2022. But no sign it will get what it's looking for.
City manager Jeff Fielding says City management exempt staff will have their salaries frozen for another year. That saves 1 percentage point on tax bill he says. #yyccc
City is still in contract negotiations with 11 unions/work groups. City mgr won't reveal what assumptions on labour costs are built into this budget. Zero? Inflation? No one knows. #yyccc
Farkas says he'll signal in budget debate to rollback spending by 5%. He wants admin to start working on that plan now so it's ready for the budget debate. #yyccc