city hallIf city council agrees on one thing on this budget, it’s that they aren’t close to putting it to a final vote.

City Treasurer Jim Howie says according to the preliminary budget, the city could see an 18% increase to capital.

That works out to be over $1-million in spending.

He says the bulk of that money — around $548,500 — will go to projects at parks across the city, including $70,000 for the parking lot at Hollinger Park.

Howie says the next step is for council to send staff requests for cuts in certain areas.

Council says they’re “not even close” to finalizing this budget, with many questions still needed to be answered.

More cuts will definitely be needed, to ease the burden on the taxpayers.

If no other decreases come to the table, residents would see their costs jump up 4.5%.

Some of the cuts Howie told council about included decreasing spending on Strategic Plan Projects and the re-purposing and study review of Mountjoy Arena.

Time-wise, Mayor Steve Black joked they could finalize the budget on December 31st, 2015, when all the spending is done for the year but that there will be more meetings to be held in the near future to sort everything out.

The original schedule had the budget being finalized this coming Monday, but a meeting is expected Tuesday to continue the budget process.

See Howie’s full report at THIS LINK.