Chatham-Kent staff and councillors will be taking their 2021 budget deliberations into a fourth night.
After a lengthy discussion on Tuesday evening, the proposed tax hike was trimmed down to 2.58 per cent. Administration initially went into budget deliberations proposing a 3.96 per cent increase.
In hopes of lessening the proposed tax increase and taking into consideration the tough financial situation many residents are in, Councillor Aaron Hall started off the evening by putting forward a motion to remove the incremental increase of $475,000 for Storm Sewer Lifecycle from this year's budget.
"By no means is this meant to lessen the value and need to look at our storm sewer reserves and to look at the increased funding for underground infrastructure," he said.
The motion was amended by Councillor Anthony Ceccacci to still remove the $475,000 from the Storm Sewer Lifecycle but allocate a minimum of $300,000 to it from the $1.6 million Lifecycle Asset Management Plan.
Councillor Melissa Harrigan expressed concern that removing any money from this year's budget for underground infrastructure could mean the municipality will have to pay for it down the line, a common concern expressed by several councillors throughout the night.
"This is not going to go away," she said. "The short term gain that we may get from this being approved and removed from the budget, we will pay for exponentially."
The motion was ultimately approved.
Calling it a tough cut, Councillor Trevor Thompson put forward a motion to remove $99,840 and $1,739 for the Case Manager Housing Services position. However, the motion was unsuccessful.
According to General Manager of Community Human Services Dr. April Rietdyk, the position helps find housing for individuals, helps work towards keeping people housed as well as working collaboratively with landlords.
"Having case managers working with both sides of that housing continuum is really needed in order to maintain the level of housing that we have," Rietdyk explained.
Council also voted down a motion from Councillor Clare Latimer that one-time funding of $184,000 be made available from the Together CK reserve to be used to reduce this year's tax increase.
Multiple councillors once again expressed concern that cutting from too many areas this year, would result in an even larger tax hike next year.
"I think a large part of this stems back to whether we think it's prudent to pass on increases to future years," said Budget Chair Brock McGregor. "I think we've learned in the past that that does not normally go well. The increased pressure next year, I think has the potential to lead to worse decisions."
Elsewhere in the evening, council was able to trim some of the tax hike by changing the physician recruitment initiative funding to a two-year project for $200,000 from reserves as well as changing the proposed lifecycle inflation from 1.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent.
Towards the end of the evening, Councillor Doug Sulman put forward an unsuccessful motion that one-time funding in the amount of $3 million from the Ontario Works Future Economic Downtown Reserve be used to help reduce this year's tax increase.
According to Rietdyk, the reserve was created around the 2008 recession to make sure there is money set aside to feed, house and clothe residents in case of any future economic downfalls.
"This reserve was started after the last economic downtown when things were really, really rough and we never wanted to find ourselves in that position again where we were struggling to take care of our most vulnerable," she explained.
Chief Financial Officer Gord Quinton spoke against the recommendation, stating that it could have an extremely negative impact on the 2022 budget.
"I know this has been mentioned throughout the night when we talk about funding our budget requirements with one-time money. We never advise it," said Quinton. "We had this discussion when we were talking about $100,000 amounts and now we're talking about $3 million amounts. This would result in us coming with a 2022 budget ask around the 7.5 per cent range."
The evening closed off with Councillor Joe Faas putting forward a motion to accept the budget with a 2.58 per cent increase, which was unsuccessful. As a result, budget deliberations will continue on Wednesday night.