The Province finally released its report addressing SJ's fiscal crisis and outlining actions to try and address it, entitled
Sustaining Saint John - A Three Part Plan
Link to the document
here
The background section offers a good summary of the structural challenges faced by Saint John as well as its importance to the provincial economy.
The section concerning the Current [Higgs] Government's Perspective offers some insight into what changed behind the scenes between Gallant's 'New Deal' and now. In addition to going back to the drawing board on the mandate of the working group, the writing seems to be on the wall that current and future catalytic capital investments from the Province in support of the Saint John area that were outlined in the Gallant government's document (most prominently the NBM, but I suspect others as well) should no longer be expected.
The meat of the document is the 3-part plan, and in particular, the 20 action items detailed in Part 1. I've provided an outline below:
PART 1: Implement 20 Actions, devised by a joint Working Committee of Government of New Brunswick and City of Saint John officials.
The 20 action items are further organized by 5 themes:
I. Address the City’s Structural Challenges
- Collective Agreements
- Special Pension Payments
- City Boundaries
- Binding Arbitration Reform - Police and Fire Services
II. Reframe Local Government Property Taxation
- Tax Exemption - local government transit facilities
- Municipal Property Tax Reform
III. Support Growth and Density
- Population Growth
- Saint John Energy
IV. Pursue New Revenue Streams
- Regional Facilities - Capital and operating costs
- Accommodation Levy
- Regional Service Commissions
V. Improve Policies, Processes, and Practices
- Operating Budget Initiatives
- Organisational Structure Change
- Continuous Improvement Framework
- Operational Audit
- Review of Economic Development Framework
- Facilitating Growth through Collaboration
- Long-Term Financial Plan
- Debt Management Plan and Wage Escalation Policy
- Asset Management
PART 2: Establish a Regional Management Task Force to identify and agree on arrangements for shared service delivery and shared use of services within the region, and achieve equitable cost-sharing by March 31, 2020. The Task Force will be composed of Saint John region mayors and Local Service District representation.
This section, it goes without saying, will require the cooperation of leadership from across the region. The Province has committed to playing an advisory role, providing an established terms of reference and the services of a third-party accounting consultant to try and facilitate talks. The deadline for this mandated regional cooperation/cost-sharing agreement is March 31st, 2020.
PART 3: Re-assessment by the provincial government of the city’s operational status in May 2020, to determine what, if any, further response is required.
The province states it is "confident" that completion of Parts 1 and 2 will be sufficient to get Saint John away from the cliff, but has nonetheless promised to review the situation 10 months from now to see if any strategic adjustments need to be made.
Council will discuss the report and hopefully provide a direction to City administration at a special meeting tomorrow night.
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