Talk in Greater Sudbury around the time of the municipal election last fall was the major budget challenge facing the next city council.
Early forecasts estimated there was a $17.7 million hole in the 2023 budget, which included a $701 million operating budget and a $155 million capital budget.
City staff was directed to bring back options to get the increase to a more manageable level, around 3.7 per cent. They were directed to do this while still maintaining existing services.
Ahead of Wednesday’s finance and administration committee meeting, a new draft budget had the increase down to 4.1 per cent. That figure includes the 3.7 per cent plus the updated police budget, which adds 0.4 per cent to the overall tax increase.
So where did the savings come from?
CAO Ed Archer outlined the changes in a report to council last month. The biggest saving – $5.4 million – was achieved by spending less on capital projects.
Dubbed ‘adjust capital budget inflation’ in the proposed budget, Archer told councillors that means the amount of money spent to rebuild the city's aging infrastructure will be reduced by $5.4 million.
“Known infrastructure renewal needs -- the rate at which we’ll address those -- will be a little slower as a result,” Archer said.
A plan to rebuild largely depleted reserve funds will also be delayed, saving $3.1 million.
“We suggest deferring those plans for at least another period,’ Archer said.
Another line item – called ‘vacancy management process’ -- will save another $2.7 million.
In plain terms, that means when one of the roughly 3,000 municipal workers leaves their job, the city will wait longer to replace them and then pocket the savings in salary.
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In addition, investment income (revenue the city earns on its investments) is $3.6 million higher than forecast.
Those are the major savings totalling almost $15 million, but there are other, smaller ones. They include reducing the winter control budget by $500,000, but such a move comes with risks.
Even after years of increasing the winter control budget – up to $22 million in 2022 – it often comes in over budget.
For fiscal 2022, for example, it is expected to be $2 million over budget.
