Early budget talks look for savings in city’s IT department, Tourism London funding

If Monday night was any indication, the multi-year budget talks set to take place this fall and winter could be pretty tricky for London city politicians.

City councillors met on Monday to look at possible service cuts ahead of budget talks later this year. The purpose of the meeting was to identify areas for staff to find possible savings.

City council has already endorsed a 2.7 per cent annual tax hike for the multi-year budget, but that was before the province announced $6.6 million in provincial downloading for London in 2020.

A pitch by Ward 8 Coun. Steve Lehman to get rid of London’s tree protection bylaw lost on an 8-4 vote, but not before there were some fireworks.

“If we’re going to spend the next four years trying to undo everything we did the last four years, I’m going to be pretty frustrated with our accomplishments at the end of the term,” Ward 11 Coun. Stephen Turner said.

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Ward 6 Coun. Phil Squire shot back, saying nothing should be off the table.

“This is turning out exactly how I sort of expected. People would say: ‘Here’s something that I voted for last council, I love it, and you guys are not going to touch it in any way. You’re not going to come near it.’ That’s too bad, in my opinion,” he said.

“It’s too bad that we can’t go back and say: ‘Let’s have a review of something we did and see if the cost benefit is there.'”

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While Squire and Turner went back and forth on what was and wasn’t a valid area for possible cuts, they both agreed the city should look at scaling back funding for Tourism London.

“The hotel accommodation tax was recently implemented. It had the potential to double the budget that was provided to Tourism London. I think we would take a look at what the appropriate level of funding for tourism would be,” said Turner.

“I wouldn’t suggest a net decrease to the previous funding levels, but I think we would take a look at what the appropriate increase associated with the hotel accommodation tax should be,” he said.

Squire also pushed for the review of the IT department and their $18-million budget.

“There are other areas, which have not been mentioned by the treasurer or the city manager, that have been raised to me. There’s staffing issues — the degree to which the department has been staffed, the number of managers, those sort of things. I would like to at least hear what staff has to say about those issues,” he said.

Ultimately, councillors identified four areas to look for savings: the IT department, Tourism London funding, lowering reserve fund contributions and subsidies for community improvement.

However, nothing will be set in stone until February 2020.

– With files from Devon Peacock.